Communicated on 1 December 2014

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 64987/14 Inazi TEDLIASHVILI and others against Georgia lodged on 17 September 2014

STATEMENT OF FACTS

1 . A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix. They are all Georgian nationals who live in Gori, and are represented before the Court by Ms J. Evans, Ms J. Gavron , Mr V. Grigoryan , Ms N. Jomarjidze , Mr Ph. Leach, Ms K. Levin, Ms K. Shubashvili , Ms T. Dekanosidze and Ms T. Abazadze, lawyers from the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre in London and Georgian Young Lawyers ’ Association in Tbilisi.

2 . The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.

A. A conflict with the prison staff

3 . On 30 April 2011 Mr Kakhaber Tedliashvili, the first and second applicants ’ son and the father of the third applicant, was discovered hanged with a medical bandage in the solitary confinement cell of Rustavi prison no . 6 (“the Rustavi prison”). He had been serving a prison sentence of thirteen years and six months for an aggregate of firearms and drug offences in that prison since August 2008.

4 . According to the applicants ’ version of the events which had purportedly preceded his death, it was in the spring of 2010 that M r K. Tedliashvili ’ s relations with several security officers of the Rustavi prison had suddenly deteriorated. Notably, he had been requested to cooperate with them by becoming their “informant” in the prison. As Mr Tedliashvili had refused that cooperation, the prison officers had started bullying him, threatening with the use of force and/or denouncing him as an actual “informant” to his fellow prisoners.

5 . When the first and second applicants had visited their son in prison in the autumn of 2010, the latter confided in them that the prison security officers had started beating him (one of the beatings had even led, allegedly, to a broken leg). The fact of his ill-treatment was later confirmed by statements of two other inmates of the Rustavi prison.

6 . Starting from January 2011 and until his death, Mr Tedliashvili had regularly placed telephone calls to his parents from prison, expressing his fear of the prison officers, naming, in particular, two persons – Mr V.K. and Mr J.I. During those telephone conversations, Mr Tedliashvili would reiterate that his days were counted and that the two above-mentioned prison officers, with connivance of the governor of the prison, Mr D.M., had wanted him dead.

7 . On 8 April 2011 Mr K. Tedliashvili had publicly voiced his fears for his life for the first time by addressing written complaints to the governor of the prison, Mr D.M, and the Public Defender of Georgia. Reiterating all the details of his conflict with the two prison security officers and the death threats received from them, he had requested the two authorities to undertake urgently all the necessary measures aimed at saving his life in prison.

8 . Subsequently, on 11, 12, 13 and 18 April 2011 the first and second applicants filed with the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Custodial Institutions, the Chief Public Prosecutor ’ s Office and the President of the Human Rights Committee of the Parliament of Georgia similar requests to secure their son ’ s life and well-being in the Rustavi prison. All those complaints and requests were left without any reaction.

B. Investigation

9 . On 30 April 2011, immediately after Mr K. Tedliashvili was discovered hanged, a forensic examination of the body was conducted by State experts at the request of an internal investigative unit of the Ministry of the Custodial Institutions (“the prison investigative unit”).

10 . On 4 May and 3, 14 and 17 June 2011 the first and second applicants ’ lawyer, calling for a prompt and objective investigation of the suspicious death of his clients ’ son, requested the prison investigative unit to provide him with all the available case materials, including a copy of the results of the forensic examination.

11 . The prison investigative unit replied on 20 May and 14 July 2011 2011, refusing to give access to the case materials on account of the fact that neither of the applicants represented a party to the proceedings.

12 . As it later appeared from a correspondence between the Human Rights Committee of the Parliament of Georgia and the Chief Public Prosecutor ’ s Office, the prison investigative unit had launched on 30 April and 3 May 2011, respectively, two separate criminal cases with regard to the death of Mr Tedliashvili – the first one (no. 073110264) for instigation to commit suicide and the second one (no. 42118015) for abuses of power committed by prison staff against the late person. The correspondence also revealed that the investigations in both cases were still pending in their early stages.

13 . Between September 2011 and March 2012, the Public Defender ’ s Office, the authority acting on behalf of the applicants, and the Chief Public Prosecutor ’ s Office exchanged correspondence in relation to the progress of the investigation of Mr K. Tedliashvili ’ s death. That exchange revealed the fact that the two criminal cases nos. 073110264 and 42118015 had been transmitted from the prison investigative unit to the Chief Public Prosecutor ’ s Office on 12 and 14 August 2012 and subsequently joined. After the joinder of the cases, the Kvemo Kartli regional prosecutor ’ s office became in charge of the investigation which, however, was still pending in its early stage, without having identified any individual suspect.

14 . In early August 2013, the first applicant was summoned by an investigator of the Kvemo Kartli regional prosecutor ’ s office and interviewed in the capacity of a witness. She shared with the investigator everything she knew about a conflict between her son and the Rustavi prison security officers, Mr V.K. and Mr J.I. During that interview, the investigator allegedly acknowledged that the investigation had deliberately been conducted in an ineffective manner during the previous years. On the other hand, the investigator also suggested that, given the lapse of time, it would be difficult to reach any tangible findings in the future. In reply to the first applicant ’ s question as to why she and her husband were still not given the status of victims and why the two above-mentioned prison officers as well as the former governor of Rustavi prison no. 6, Mr D.M., were not declared as suspects, the investigator allegedly replied that it was still premature to proceed with such procedural actions.

15 . On 6 and 16 September 2013 a lawyer acting on behalf of the first and second applicants enquired with the Kvemo Kartli regional prosecutor about a progress in the investigation. The prosecutor ’ s reply of 24 September 2013 disclosed that the criminal case concerning the death of their son had been joined, on 16 October 2012, with another criminal case opened by the prosecution authority on 9 October 2012 against the two impugned security officers of the Rustavi prison, Mr V.K. and Mr J.I., on account of systemic ill-treatment of prisoners detained in that institution. The applicants further learnt that the status of victim could not be granted to them as the results of the ongoing investigation could not yet indicate beyond reasonable doubt that their son had died as a result of any type of undue treatment committed by the two suspects.

16 . On 11 November 2013 and 14 February, 28 April and 19 May 2014, the first and second applicants repeatedly complained before the regional prosecutor ’ s office about the inability to obtain the status of victim and thus be involved in the investigation so that they could at least somehow influence the ongoing investigation ’ s apparent failure to elucidate the facts surrounding their son ’ s suspicious death. Those requests were rejected by the regional prosecutor ’ s letters on 13 March and 19 June 2014, in which the authority would constantly remind the applicants that the current results of the investigation did not allow a suspicion that their son had been a victim of any undue treatment by the officers of the Rustavi prison. The prosecutor also informed them that the two impugned officers, Mr V.K. and Mr J.I., had already been convicted by the Rustavi City Court ’ s judgment of 25 February 2014 of ill-treatment (systematic beatings and torture) of sixty ‑ nine inmates of the Rustavi prison and sentenced, respectively, to eight and six years in prison. Despite that conviction, the prosecutor assured the applicants that the investigation into the death of their son ’ s death would not be dropped, suggesting an eventuality of new findings which could allow bringing charges against the two officers in the future.

COMPLAINTS

17 . The applicants complain on behalf of late Mr K. Tedliashvili and in their own name under both substantive and procedural limbs of Article 2 of the Convention, this provision invoked separately and in conjunction with Article 13, about either the direct implication of the prison authority in the suspicious death, or at least the relevant authorities ’ failure to protect life, of Mr K. Tedliashvili in prison and the absence of effective investigation in that regard.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Has Mr K. Tedliashvili ’ s right to life, who was the son of the first and second applicants and the father of the third applicant, ensured by Article 2 of the Convention, been violated in the present case?

In particular, were officers of Rustavi prison no. 6 implicated in Mr K. Tedliashvili ’ s suspicious death in prison? Did the prison and other relevant authorities took all the necessary measures and in good time aimed at securing Mr Tedliashvili ’ s life and well-being in prison (compare, for instance, with Tsintsabadze v. Georgia , no. 35403/06 , §§ 71 and 95, 15 February 2011) ?

2. Having regard to the procedural protection of the right to life (see paragraph 104 of Salman v. Turkey [GC], no. 21986/93, ECHR 2000-VII), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 2 of the Convention?

3. Did the applicants have at their disposal an effective domestic remedy for their complaint under Article 2 of the Convention about the suspicious death of Mr Tedliashvili in prison, a s required by Article 13 of the Convention?

Appendix