Investigator charged with exerting pressure on minor leading to death
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Didube-Chugureti police district investigator Mariana Choloiani, arrested in connection with the recent suicide of a 15-year-old minor, has been charged today for forcing him to plead guilty, says the Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office.
Mariana Choloiani forced minor Luka Siradze to plead guilty. After refusing to do so, the investigator continued to inquire Siradze and other minor witnesses by confrontation with one another. As a result, they suffered psychological pressure”, says the Prosecutor’s Office.
The crime is punishable by five to nine years in prison.
Siradze’s family members and lawyer claim he may have been driven to commit suicide after being subjected to psychological pressure at Tbilisi Didube-Chugureti police station on December 10 and 11. They say that law enforcers wanted him to admit to the crime of damaging the property of Mtsvane School in Tbilisi and writing vulgar phrases on its walls.
Luka Siradze died at M. Iashvili Children’s Central Hospital on December 17.
Following the suicide attempt, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that the Deputy of Didube-Chugureti District Police Department Division and the investigator of the same department were suspended until the investigation is complete.
The Georgian State Inspector’s Office, a newly created independent agency investigating alleged offences committed by law enforcers, has pointed at possible problems at a school, not only at a police station which could have pushed a 15-year-old minor to commit suicide last week. “Situations, which could not have been acceptable or desirable for a child have been revealed at a school. Such situations also took place at a police station,” head of the agency Londa Toloraia told the media.
Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia has promised “very tough punishment” for those, ‘no matter their status or rank’, whose guilt will be revealed by the State Inspector’s Office in pushing 15-year-old Luka Siradze to suicide on December 11. Gakharia has expressed his “deep sorrow” over the death of Siradze, who died in Iashvili Hospital in Tbilisi early yesterday due to severe injuries he received after jumping from the ninth floor of a building.
A 15-year-old minor who may have been led to a suicide attempt by psychological pressure at Tbilisi Didube-Chugureti police station over a week ago, has died at M. Iashvili Children’s Central Hospital today.
UNICEF Georgia (United Nations Children's Emergency Fund) has called on the authorities to ensure children’s rights in the juvenile justice system, responding to the suicide attempt of a 15-year-old minor due to alleged psychological pressure at Didube-Chugureti police station last week.
Tbilisi City Court has sent female investigator Mariana Choloiani to detention for exerting pressure on Luka Siradze, 15, who died at M. Iashvili Children’s Central Hospital earlier this week.
State Inspector Londa Toloraia, who is investigating causes behind the death of 15-year-old Luka Siradze, says that investigator Mariana Choloiani, who has been sent to pretrial detention, made threats to the minor that if he had not admitted to the crime his brother would have had problems.
Investigator Mariana Choloiani, who was sentenced to three years in prison for ‘applying psychological pressure’ to 15-year-old Luka Siradze back in 2019 who later committed suicide, has been early released from prison, her lawyer Gagi Mosiashvili has confirmed.