Prosecutor’s Office summons investigator for claims contradicting official conclusion in 2020 death of young woman

The Georgian Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday said it had summoned a former investigator for an interview following his claims that contradicted the official version of events in a highly publicised 2020 death of a 23-year-old woman. 

Sergo Shubitidze is expected to be interviewed by the body on Tuesday after saying he did not believe the official conclusion that ruled the death of IT professional Tamar Bachaliashvili a suicide.

The former investigator, who worked on the case in the Kvemo Kartli police department,  told Formula TV channel on Saturday he did not trust the official version of the investigation after seeing the body of the deceased.

He told the channel he did “not want to carry this burden alone” and added “those who ought to carry it should too”.

In its comments following the interview, the Prosecutor’s Office said it was launching an inquiry into Shubitidze with the formal article on “falsifying evidence”. The body stressed 600 individuals had been interviewed and more than 1,000 investigative activities performed before the case was marked as solved.

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It also said Shubitidze had only interviewed three individuals and completed a minor part of the documentation related to the case, adding he “did not conduct any operations that could make any kind of influence on the circumstances determined by the investigation”. 

Bachaliashvili went missing from Ponichala district of Tbilisi in July 2020 and was found dead in her own car in a forest in eastern Georgia after a five-day search, with the country’s Prosecutor General’s office concluding in December she had committed suicide.

The young woman’s family claimed she had been murdered after coming across classified information and “dangerous people” through her work.