Transparency International Georgia will represent the interests of political prisoner Saba Skhvitaridze before the European Court of Human Rights. The organisation has already lodged an application with the Strasbourg Court, alleging violations of Skhvitaridze’s right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In the organisation’s view, the criminal proceedings and his conviction were pursued for an ulterior purpose of a political nature. Accordingly, the organisation has also alleged a violation of Article 18 of the Convention, taken in conjunction with Article 6.

Transparency International Georgia has devoted two blog posts to its examination of Saba Skhvitaridze’s case, published at the stages of assessing the investigation and the judgment delivered by the court of first instance. In convicting him, the courts at all three levels of jurisdiction relied solely on the evidence of police officers whose testimony was false, as well as on evidence whose reliability was undermined by the gross violations of the rules of criminal procedure in the course of its obtaining. At the same time, the domestic courts failed to give adequate consideration to the exculpatory evidence submitted by the defence.

In our assessment, these shortcomings, taken together, raise serious concerns as to the overall fairness of the criminal proceedings against Saba Skhvitaridze and the adequacy of the domestic courts’ assessment of the evidence and the defence case.

Saba Skhvitaridze was also subjected to acts of violence by police officers at the time of his arrest and upon his arrival at the police station. He will challenge the alleged ill-treatment inflicted upon him by the police in a separate application to the European Court of Human Rights.