Late-PM Zhvania’s security guard released on bail

One of the two security guards tending to Georgia’s late Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania has been released on bail after being charged with negligence, which led to the PM’s death in 2005.

Security guard shift manager Mikheil Dzadzamia was arrested on March 21, 2014, and was released after he paid 2,000 GEL bond, said his lawyer.

Imprisonment as a measure of constraint for Dzadzamia was changed to bail at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office. 

Dzadzamia asked for a jury panel to decide his fate. The Prosecutor’s Office said today the process of jury selection was lengthy, while, under the Georgian Criminal Code, the total term of imprisonment applied as a measure of constraint should not exceed nine months.  

Since the nine-month prison term would soon expire for Dzadzamia, the Prosecutor’s Office had to release him on bail. 

Dzadzamia and another security guard manager Koba Kharshiladze were charged with negligence due to their "careless attitude towards their work, which inadvertently caused the death of Zhvania”.

The Chief Prosecutor’s Office said in order to ensure the safety of then Prime Minister Zhvania and his family, an obligatory security plan had been developed where the PM’s security guards had to protect the leader at all times and not abandon their role.

Despite this, on the night of February 2, 2005, Dzadzamia and Karshiladze "improperly fulfilled” their duties and abandoned their post, which left the PM without any protection. Early the following morning Zhvania was found dead.

Zhvania’s lifeless body was found in a rented apartment in the early morning of February 3, 2005. The body of then-Kvemo Kartli region Governor Raul Usupov was also found at the scene.

The official cause of the men’s death has not been determined but officials and experts, who examined the bodies, claimed the men died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning from an inadequately ventilated gas heater.

However, Zhvania’s family and friends said they did not trust this version. They also did not trust the autopsy result, which expert Levan Chachua performed to the PM and Governor’s bodies shortly after the corpses were found.

Currently, three separate investigations are ongoing in connection with Zhvania and Usupov’s unexpected death. The first is to determine the exact cause of the men’s death; the second is to determine why expert Chachua did not include all body injuries in his autopsy report; and the final investigation related to the negligence charges against Zhvania’s security guards Kharshiladze and Dzadzamia.