Communicated on 12 March 2015
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 8971/10
Nodar GOGALADZE
against Georgia
lodged on 7 December 2009
STATEMENT OF FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Nodar Gogaladze, is a Georgian national, who was born in 1986 and is detained in Rustavi. He is represented before the Court by Mr Z. Rostiashvili and Ms I. Brelidze, lawyers practising in Tbilisi.
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. On 12 February 2008 the applicant was arrested in his home in the village of Rveli on the suspicion of having committed a crime. While being transported in a police vehicle from Rveli to the police station in Borjomi, the applicant was allegedly subjected to verbal abuse and beating by the policeman; the beating and verbal abuse continued upon their arrival at the police station. The applicant claims that as the result of the alleged ill‑treatment, the self-incriminatory statement of 14 February 2008 available in the file was extracted from him.
4. On 4 April 2008 a criminal investigation was opened into the alleged acts of the applicant’s ill-treatment and he was given the victim status.
5. The applicant was subsequently convicted, which became final by the inadmissibility decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia dated 23 June 2009. As the aforementioned self-incriminatory statement had never been formally adduced to the criminal case file in evidence against him, the applicant’s conviction was based on other evidence not relating to or emanating from his self-incrimination.
6. In 2009-2010 the applicant’s lawyers sent several letters to the respective prosecutor’s office enquiring about the progress of the investigation into the applicant’s alleged ill-treatment. By the latest letter available in the file dated 22 March 2010, the Regional Prosecutor of Akhaltsikhe informed the applicant’s lawyer that the investigation was still ongoing at a preliminary stage.
COMPLAINT
7. The applicant complains under Article 3 of the Convention, taken separately as well as in conjunction with Article 13 of the Convention, about his alleged beating by the police at the time of his arrest and the lack of effective investigation thereof.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant been subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?
2. Have the domestic authorities fulfilled their obligations vis-à-vis the applicant with regard to the procedural limb of the prohibition of torture under Article 3 of the Convention (see paragraph 131 of Labita v. Italy [GC], no. 26772/95, ECHR 2000-IV)?
3. Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective domestic remedy for his complaint under Article 3 of the Convention, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?
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