- 6-1. Mordovia, Perm, Vladimir Prison
- 6-2. Political Prisoners in Vladimir Prison (a list)
- 6-3. Torture in the Investigation Prisons of Georgia
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A year ago, the Chronicle already possessed a complaint made by Karlo Tsulaya, sentenced in Georgia for ‘receiving bribes’. This complaint stated that the evidence given by Tsulaya himself and his co-defendant Kardava at the preliminary investigation was obtained by torture (beatings, etc.) by special prisoners, carried out in special cells at an investigation prison.
In his complaints Tsulaya reports how torture was also used on other prisoners. Tsulaya himself was tortured by the prisoner Y. G. Tsirekidze.
The facts described in Tsulaya’s complaint were appalling to the point of being unbelievable: the Chronicle decided not to publish them at that time. However, in April 1975 a trial took place in Tbilisi of two prisoners, agents of the Georgian SSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) who had beaten a third prisoner to death.
It became clear from the court evidence that torture in the investigation prisons of Georgia was a reality.
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[1] 1973 TSULAYA TRIAL
In June 1973 an assizes session of the Georgian SSR Supreme Court, presided over by Gersamiya, investigated the case in which Kardava was charged with giving bribes and Tsulaya with taking bribes. The State’s case was put by Procurator Khurtsilava. Tsulaya had been arrested on 30 March 1973. From January 1970 until his arrest he had worked as chairman of the Tsalendzhikh district committee of the people’s oversight agency.
From April to May 1973 Tsulaya was in cell 40 in the second wing of Tbilisi Investigation Prison No. 1. In his complaint he writes:
“From the very first day Y. Tsirekidze began to torment me. He beat me so brutally that I lost consciousness for several hours and the administration had to call for the help of doctors. Later they stuck iron spikes in me, beat me on the head with a chair, stubbed out lighted cigarettes on the skin of my hands, and threatened to kill me if I did not write evidence that would incriminate me. In particular they demanded that I should write that I had taken a bribe of 800 roubles from Kardava.
“I refused and was beaten so badly that I lost consciousness for two to three hours. Doctors were called who brought me back to my senses. Afterwards the beatings continued. Later Tsirekidze sat down beside me and named my nearest relatives, describing their appearance, and even gave their telephone numbers.
“He named my wife and eight-year-oId daughter, whom they threatened to rape if I did not give the evidence required. X was convinced that they could do this, and so I finally agreed and was ready to write everything they asked. I was ready to confess to having received not just 800 roubles, but eight million roubles.”
Concerning the actual trial Tsulaya writes:
“After the trial had begun Kardava began to give slanderous evidence just as he had been told to, but a representative of the Georgian MVD, Major Skhirtladze, was present at the trial and warned Kardava to give truthful evidence and not to be afraid of anyone. After this Kardava renounced all his previous evidence and began to tell the truth and expose all the provocateurs …
“At this moment confusion arose in the courtroom; the judge and the prosecutor did not know what to do next and speeded up the trial, thus failing to question about 50 important witnesses. The case evidence, consisting of eight volumes, was compressed and hurried through in one hour. Gersamiya then suspended the trial proceedings for two days and went to Tbilisi …”
Both defendants were sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.
Only in his camp did Tsulaya manage to obtain a medical examination and a report concerning the burns on his hand; the judge had refused to allow this earlier. Report No. 2/675, dated 4 October 1973, was then sent to the Georgian SSR Procurator’s Office.
In his complaint Tsulaya also describes the events leading up to his arrest. Tsulaya’s complaint has been published in samizdat.
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[2] TRIAL OF TSIREKIDZE & USUPYAN
In April 1975 the people’s court of the Kirov district in Tbilisi heard Case No. 2254.
Prisoners Yury Grigorevich Tsirekidze and Valiko Usupyan were charged with having beaten up the prisoner N. U. Ismailov so severely on 24 October 1973 that he died on 27 October.
For three days after the beating Ismailov was given no treatment. The defendants were charged under two Articles of the Georgian SSR Criminal Code: 110 pt. 2, “serious physical injury with intent”; and 129 pt. 2, “neglect of dangerous injuries”. The presiding judge was Gabitashvili; the prosecution was conducted by Procurator Macharadze.
The court hearing took place in the recreation room of Investigation Prison No. 1 in Tbilisi.
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The defendants Tsirekidze and Usupyan had been convicted previously on numerous occasions for various crimes. The MVD had kept them in investigation prisons for years without sending them to camps, and the investigators had made use of them in their work.
Investigation Prison No. 1 in Tbilisi contains a special wing, No. 2, This wing, isolated from the other wings of the prison, was built in 1966, It has ten cells specially constructed with facilities for eavesdropping and secret spyholes. They are occupied only by police agents and their ‘targets’, i.e. the prisoners from whom the agents are supposed to extract information — by any means!
There have been cases where prisoners have died in the hospital after heavy beatings, and the hospital has ‘written off’ their deaths under various false medical pretexts. They could not, however, ‘write off’ the prisoner Ismailov in this way, as he had died in his cell and it was obvious that this was due to the beating that he had suffered.
Consequently, it was decided to initiate a case against the agents, whilst the prison administration got off with no more than a fright. Lezhava, the head of the investigation prison, and Frolov [1], the operations officer on whose orders the beating up of Ismailov took place, were dismissed.
During the pre-trial investigation Tsirekidze wrote many declarations to various government bodies. He described in detail the whole system of ‘beating out’ evidence with the aid of torture, deception, ‘stool pigeons’ and blackmail [2].
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[3] TSIREKIDZE & WITNESS TESTIMONY
At his trial Tsirekidze, sincerely puzzled, asked:
“When I was being called a Richard Sorge, I was needed by everyone, I was considered to be all right. Why did the Presidium take two years off me?”
In July 1970 Tsirekidze was given a six-year sentence for ‘hooliganism’; in May 1973, after representations had been made on his behalf by the administration of the investigation prison, supported by K. Ketiladze, Minister of Internal Affairs for the Georgian SSR, the Presidium of the Georgian SSR Supreme Soviet took two years off his sentence.
“Why did they express their gratitude to me? Why did Shevardnadze himself shake my hand, if I was so bad? After all, I had had so many convictions! I brought thousands of people to their doom and I saved so many of our officials!”
When the judge asked: ‘Tell me, Tsirekidze, were you ordered to kill Ismailov?’, he replied: ‘The orders were to beat him, not to kill him. You should know that in pre-trial detention cells they give them worse beatings than at our place; then they bring them to us — for more beatings. Who can stand so much?’
This reply drew the following remark from the judge:
“We shall issue a separate order that people like you are no longer to be ordered to give prisoners a working-over. As for the officials responsible, we shall initiate charges against them.”
In answer to the procurator’s question: ‘A dying man lay for three days in his cell. Why didn’t you take any notice?’, the witness Goderzishvili (an official and inspector at the investigation prison) said: ‘That did not come under my sphere of responsibility. It was the business of the head of that wing. I did not witness the beating of Ismailov by Tsirekidze. I informed my superiors and the nurse about it, but they took no action.’
Later the same man said:
“I am amazed that this case is being heard in an open court. Only officials should be allowed in. Cell 40 was a special cell. Tsirekidze was thanked for cracking more than 200 cases.”
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[4] PROSECUTION & DEFENCE
The procurator in his speech said of the defendants:
“They say they were ordered to beat him up. Perhaps this is true, but they were probably told to work within the limits of decency.”
The lawyer Pkhakadze, defending Tsirekidze, said:
“What led Tsirekidze to do all this? The violations of the law ordered by his now dismissed superiors. I myself am a former MVD official, but I have never heard of another prison where so much vodka and so many drugs were brought in, where the prison officials were themselves trading in them. Discipline was violated, there was no supervision … I demand the minimum sentence.”
Usupyan pleaded not guilty and renounced making a final statement.
Tsirekidze said in his final statement:
“Why was I ordered to beat people? I did not beat the innocent, I beat those about whom there were special instructions … We were always given instructions about beatings and torture, everyone knows that. I demand my acquittal, I plead not guilty.”
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[5] SENTENCE
In passing sentence, the court stated that defendants Usupyan and Tsirekidze had beaten the prisoner to death ‘because of a private quarrel’, and sentenced them both to six years of strict-regime.
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NOTES
- Later put on trial, see 1977 report with comment by Gamsakhurdia, CCE 45.20 [6].
↩︎ - This material was published in The Sunday Times (2 November 1975) in an article by W. Shawcross and P. Reddaway.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 