The results of the autopsy carried out by the Georgia’s National Forensics Bureau shows that 35-year-old soldier Archil Tatunashvili, who died in unclear circumstances in occupied Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) region on February 23 2018, sustained more than 100 injuries all over his body while alive.
"All injuries were received while he was alive. They were caused by the multiple use of a blunt tool,” says the findings of the Forensics Bureau. This document is only a part of the complex examination, which should find the real reasons behind the death of the Georgian soldier.
According to the document, handed to Tatunashvili’s family and his lawyers, there are over 20 fractures only on the hands of his body. The father of the victim Giorgi Tatunashvili is going to meet with experts to receive the answers on the questions he has.
The body was returned with someone else’s nose, in our opinion. There is no mention in the results about this detail and other important details. I think what I saw on his forehead is a bullet track,” told Giorgi Tatunashvili to the Georgia’s Public Broadcaster’s news service.
A lawyer from NGO Human Rights Centre Tamar Avaliani, who has been monitoring the case from the beginning, says that he was tortured in Tskhinvali prison but to prove this in the court, the final findings of autopsy are needed.
Georgia is drafting a lawsuit against Russia for Tatunashvili’s case in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Tatunashvili’s body was returned to his family only 26 days after his death and all inner organs were removed from the body. The de-facto Tskhinvali administration had refused to hand it over before the autopsy made by a Russian bureau.
According to the results of the Russian autopsy that de-facto Tskhinvali officials gave to the International Committee of the Red Cross while transferring the body, Tatunashvili died of acute heart failure caused by myocardial ischemia on February 23.
Tatunashvili and two other Georgian citizens were detained in the occupied Akhalgori area by Russia-controlled border guards on February 22 2018, allegedly for participating in the Russia-Georgia 2008 war.