The Special Investigation Service will delve into the cases of the Tsintsabadze Group following the recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, the Special Investigation Service stated.

“We would like to respond to the fake information of the TV story spread by several media, as the Special Investigation Service was ordered to reinvestigate the case of ‘Machalikashvili and others’ according to the recommendation issued by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which is not the truth.

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe discussed the issue of execution of the judgments and decisions of the ECtHR on the cases of the ‘Tsintsabadze Group’, in which, together with the other cases, the judgments related to the ‘Machalikashvili and others’ and ‘Ochigava’ are combined. The Committee recommended that the Special Investigative Service, taking into account the conclusions of the Strasbourg Court, study the materials of the criminal cases of ‘Machalikashvili’ and ‘Ochigava’, as well as the question of the feasibility of reinvestigation.

Accordingly, within the mandate granted by the law, following the recommendations issued by the Committee of Ministers, the Special Investigation Service will make a legal and objective decision regarding the specified cases of the ‘Tsintsabadze Group’ based on the analysis of the case materials and the judgments of the European Court.

We would like to remind the society that on January 19, 2023, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), in its decision in the case of ‘Machalikashvili and others against Georgia’, did not recognize the substantive violation and found a violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in the procedural part. As for the ‘Ochigava’ case, the ECHR in its decision of February 23, 2023, established that there had been a substantive and procedural violation of Article 3 (torture) of the Convention in connection with the ill-treatment of Ochigaba by prison staff in 2011.

It should be noted, that in the above-mentioned recommendations of the Council of Europe, the initiatives of the Special Investigation Service, based on which all applicants and potential victims are allowed to access and familiarize themselves with the criminal case materials and elaborated guidelines for the qualification of facts of torture and ill-treatment was positively evaluated,” the statement reads.