The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that conviction of former head of Georgia’s civil aviation agency, Zurab Tchankotadze, more than a decade ago was not based on sufficient reasons.
The Strasbourg-based court also ruled that pretrial detention of Tchankotadze, who died in January 2013, was not lawful in a period between September, 2004 and March, 2005.
As a result the Court found violation of Article 6 §1 (right to a fair trial) and Article 5 §1 (right to liberty and security) of the European convention on human rights and ordered Georgia to pay EUR 20,000 for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 15,000 for costs and expenses.
The applicant’s complaints also involved claims about violation of Article 18 of the convention, claiming that criminal proceedings against him and his pre-trial detention had had ulterior, abusive motives; but the Court ruled this part of the application inadmissible for being “ill-founded”.
Tchankotadze, who was head of the civil aviation agency in 2002-2004, was arrested and charged with repeated abuse of power in March, 2004. He was found guilty in some episodes of abuse of power and sentenced to five years’ in jail in August, 2005, which then was reduced to four years on appeal.
The ECHR said that it was difficult to see why Tchankotadze’s actions for which he was convicted had been described as criminal at all.
