Georgian leading NGO files lawsuit against Russia on murder case in European Court
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Georgia’s Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA) and partner organization European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC) have filed a lawsuit against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), over a high profile murder case committed by a Russian-controlled border guard in 2016.
The NGO addressed ECHR with the name of the family of late Giga Otkhozoria, who was brutally killed by Russian-controlled border guard Rashid Kanji Ogli on May 19, 2016, at the occupation line between Georgia and its western, breakaway Abkhazia region.
Despite the fact the Georgian court sentenced Kanji Ogli to 14 years in prison in absentia and the individual is wanted by Interpol, the de facto leadership of Abkhazia refuses to hand him over to the central government of Georgia.
GYLA says that video footage is available which depicts how Kanji Ogli shot Otkhoziria several times on territory currently controlled by Georgia and carried out a control shot to the head when the 30-year-old man fell down.
Russia, which occupies Abkhazia and carries out the effective control of the area, is responsible for violating human rights specified by the European convention in the de facto region, as well as by the activities of de facto authorities,” GYLA stated.
Shortly after the incident in 2016, the Abkhazian court sentenced Kanji Ogli to house imprisonment. However, last year, "due to a lack of evidence”, the so-called Prosecutor’s Office of Abkhazia suspended the investigation of the case, as well as criminal persecution against the offender.
The Georgian government has raised the issue of handing over the offender to Tbilisi at all meetings with de facto representatives.
The individual accused of murdering Giga Otkhozoria last year near the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) separating Georgia and its breakaway region of Abkhazia has been given two additional years of detention, which now makes for 14-years of imprisonment in total.
UPDATED: 5.10pm
The Military Court operating in Georgia’s de facto Abkhazia region has imposed a sentence of home detention on the border guard who shot and killed 31-year-old Georgian man Giga Otkhozoria on May 19.
A Georgian citizen has been shot six times and killed by Russia's border guards patrolling the area between Georgia and breakaway Abkhazia region.
Georgian authorities have uncovered the identity of the border guard who shot and killed a Georgian man near the Administrative Boundary Line (ABL) separating de facto Abkhazia region from the rest of Georgia.
Striking the town of Gori’s center by the Iskander – a mobile short-range ballistic missile system produced and deployed by the Russian Federation – is one of the central episodes that will be discussed by the court which will start its deliberations after the hearing in private.
The final hearing in the case of Georgia v. Russia has come to the end at the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg. Georgia’s British lawyer Ben Emerson, a representative of Russian Justice Ministry and the lawyer of the state of Russia, addressed a panel of 17 judges.
Beginning from August 1st, the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court of Georgia can request the European Court to give advisory opinions on questions of principle relating to the interpretation or application of the rights and freedoms defined in the European Convention of Human Rights.
Four years have passed since the brutal murder of Georgian citizen Giga Otkhozoria by Russian-controlled border guards in the village of Khurcha, near Georgia’s western Russian-occupied region of Abkhazia.
Otkhozoria was trying to transport food into the breakaway Abkhazia region for a funeral ceremony for his late aunt on May 19, 2016, when so-called border guards demanded he pay in exchange for being allowed to transport the goods, which caused a dispute.
Georgian authorities on Thursday marked six years since the brutal murder of Georgian citizen Giga Otkhozoria by occupation forces across the administrative boundary over the Russian-occupied Abkhazia region in the country’s west.