Russia to pay €70,000 to family of Georgian victim of 2006 mass deportation
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Russia has agreed to pay €70,000 compensation to the family of a Georgian citizen who was among the mass deportation of thousands of Georgians from Russia in 2006.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, France announced a deal had been reached between the family of victim Manana Jabelia and Russia. The victim’s family had lodged a complained with the ECtHR and Russia had agreed to pay €70,000 compensation for the incident 10 years ago.
Earlier official Georgia said the mass deportation of thousands of Geoegian citizens from Russia was a "mild form of ethnic cleansing”.
A lawyer representing the Jabelia family said Russia asked to make a deal with the victim’s family, Russia offered the compensation and the Jabelia family agreed.
Manana Jabelia was working as a salesperson in Russia when she was detained in November 2006 amid Georgia-Russia espionage controversy when the previous government of Georgia arrested four Russian officers on charges of espionage in September 2006.
Jabelia was one of thousands of Georgians who became a target of Russia’s revenge in retaliation to the arrest of four of its officers.
The woman was detained because she lacked valid residency documents and was sent to a pre-trial detention facility.
The Russian court imposed a guilty verdict and demanded she must be deported to Georgia after paying a fine for violating Russian law.
Jabelia appeal the decision and won. Her deportation order was annulled but she was sent back to her prison cell, where she died of heart attack.
The 2006 deportation of Georgians from Russia referred to the deaths, unlawful arrests, expulsions and overall mistreatment of several thousand ethnic Georgians by the Russian government in 2006.
The official Russian position was that the Georgian victims had violated Russia’s Immigration Laws and their treatment in custody and expulsion from the country was standard law enforcement.
Georgia appealed to the ECtHR and in 2014 the European Court ruled in Georgia's favour, concluding Russia's actions in 2006 violated the European Convention on Human Rights.
In 2015 Georgia officially requested in excess of $70 million in damages for the victims. Russia has not paid the money.
Russia’s 2006 policy of arresting, detaining and expelling large numbers of Georgian nationals from Russia was unlawful and violated the Euro Convention against Georgia, said the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in its long-awaited verdict today.
The past three years have been extremely busy for Georgia’s Ministry of Justice; the country signed an Association Agreement (AA) with the European Union (EU), began implementing visa liberalisation requirements and introduced various reforms to make the agency more transparent.
Georgia’s Justice Ministry has sent detailed information to the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) about more than 1,700 Georgian nationals who were among the mass deportation of thousands of Georgians from Russia in 2006.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled Russia must pay €30,000 compensation to a heavily pregnant Georgian woman who was expelled from Russia in 2006 with her four underage children, who later gave birth ti a still-born after arriving to Georgia.
A total of 1,760 Georgian citizens have been deported across the globe in the first six months of 2017. Georgia’s Interior Ministry revealed the statistics today.