Temirlan Machalikashvili's Family Demands Creation of Fact-finding Commission
By Tea Mariamidze
Thursday, December 27
One year after 19-year-old Temirlan Machalikashvili died from a head-wound during a special operation in the Pankisi Gorge, his family demands the creation of a temporary fact-finding commission, which will find out what exactly happened during the operation and why the young man was shot.
Georgian law-enforcers claim that Machalikashvili was shot when he tried to detonate a grenade. However, the family and relatives say that he was sleeping when law-enforcers shot him without warning.
The father of the deceased young man Malkhaz Machalikashvili has many times voiced several demands. He wants law enforcers to confess that his son was killed by mistake. He also demands his family be granted the status of the victim, adding his son was the victim of someone’s mistake.
Since the incident, the man has been calling on the government to hold everyone involved in the operation responsible, adding the authorities are trying to accuse his son of having links with terrorists.
At the press conference, held on December 26, Tamta Mikeladze from the NGO Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC) assessed the carried out investigative activities by the law enforcers as “ineffective.”
“The Prosecutor's Office started investigating the case, but we cannot see that the ongoing investigation is effective. At the initial stage of the investigation, the State Security Service (SSS) made substantial mistakes that made us pessimistic about the results of the investigation. The most important evidence was obtained by the SSS and we have a suspicion that some of them were fabricated or destroyed, which damaged the investigation,” she said.
Mikeladze says the family of Machalikashvili has no access to some very important case materials, and also the results of the complex forensic examination.
“We believe the force used during the special operation did not meet the standards,” she added.
According to her, they are going to appeal to all parliamentary groups including the government and opposition groups. EMC and Malkhaz Machalikashvili demand consultations with the parliamentary groups.
Mariam Kublashvili, the lawyer of the Machalikashvili family says Samkharauli National Forensic Bureau has concluded the complex examination but “cannot dare to say the truth.”
“The expertise bureau could not dare to say the truth about the circumstances in which Temirlan was killed. I was expecting that this would happen,” she added.
Malkhaz Machalikashvili says all he asked from the authorities is to admit the truth and reveal what really happened one year ago in Pankisi.
“Unfortunately I cannot see even one person in the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party who will say the truth. This is why I became their enemy. I wish their families the same catastrophe which my family saw,” the man stressed.
After the press-conference, Machalikashvili and his supporters held two protest-rallies in the capital - one at the so-called Moduli building and the second at the parliament building, asking for the “fair investigation.”
The rallies at the parliament have been underway since May 2018.
Temirlan Machalikashvili was wounded in village Duisi in his own bed on December 26, 2018. On January 10 he died in the hospital.
