Ted Jonas, a dual Georgian – American citizen and well-known business and environmental lawyer, who has lived in Georgia for some 30 years, was beaten and arrested by police at the demonstration against the Georgian foreign agents’ law on the night of April 30 – May 1. Like hundreds of other demonstrators who suffered similar treatment at the hands of the police, he is being tried in court for “hooliganism” and “disobeying the lawful orders of police.” Following is his brief closing statement from his trial, in which he is represented pro bono by former Deputy Justice Minister Sandro Baramidze. In our opinion, the statement nicely encapsulates the constitutional and legal issues that are at stake, and that arise, in the prosecutions of demonstrators. The final decision in Ted Jonas case is due at a hearing set for July 24 at 11 am. The charges of petty hooliganism and disobeying the “lawful” [sic] orders of the police carry fines up to 3,000 GEL and 15 days imprisonment.
Ted Jonas’ comment on the testimony to provide context (the testimony follows): This is a statement made for three purposes: to remind this judge of the constitutional issues at stake; to put directly in front of her the criminal conduct of the police in lying in their testimony and submitting false documents at the trial; and lastly, to gain my acquittal on the legal grounds that if the police testimony and documents on which the arrest and charges are based are fake, as we proved they were, she simply cannot convict me. The reason I do not mention the severe beating I received at the hands of the special forces is because the judge would not allow any references to that at the trial, claiming it was irrelevant to the charges against me. I would make another comment here as well that wasn’t appropriate to make at my trial, but it is appropriate in a media editorial: if every beaten and arrested demonstrator were provided a good lawyer, like I was, and the prosecution’s case challenged as we were able to do in my case, it would completely “gum up” the Georgian Dream illegal prosecution factory. And for good reason: the cases are unconstitutional and based on falsified and inadequate evidence. Either the system should be made to work with more due process, and if it will not do so, then its biased functionality as a mere instrument of state executive authority (i.e., not a court) will be there for all to see (including the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, when all these cases are appealed).
Court Testimony by Ted Jonas
I believe I am being prosecuted in this court for exercising my right of assembly, guaranteed to me as a Georgian citizen by the Georgian Constitution.
I believe I am being prosecuted in this court for exercising my right of free speech, guaranteed to me as a Georgian citizen by the Georgian Constitution.
As for speech, you know the exact words I used at the demonstration towards the police, because I re-counted it in a TV interview that the prosecutor has submitted into evidence. I was very honest about it. The words I used (“Slaves!” “Traitors!”) are political statements about the role that the police are playing. They are statements about government policy. They are therefore constitutionally protected political speech. I know how to curse in Georgian, and I did not curse. I didn’t say anything about their mothers, or use any of the other colorful curses available in the Georgian language. And that’s according to the prosecution’s own evidence.
The “provocations” at these demonstrations are not by the demonstrators against the police. It’s the opposite: the provocations are by the police against the demonstrators. When police armed with all kinds of weapons and gear attack peaceful demonstrators, that is the first blow. When the demonstrators respond not with violence, but with words, that is a response, a defense against the provocation. And it is what any human with any dignity would and will do.
The police witnesses have lied to you in this courtroom in their oral testimony and in their written statements about the facts of the arrest. What time it happened. Who arrested me. What happened. They claim they personally warned me to stop “insulting” them three times before arresting me. The prosecution’s own video evidence shows that these police officers from a station in Vere were not the police who actually “arrested” – attacked me – on Rustaveli Avenue. These “witnesses” were not there. The men who arrested me wore black uniforms and black masks, whereas these officers, whom I only saw for the first time two hours after the beating when they took me to the police station in Digomi, and it was the first time they saw me, were wearing regular police uniforms. And you can see that there was no chance of a warning by the special forces who did attack me, as they targeted and ran at me from a distance of some 30 meters, breaking through a crowd of other demonstrators to get to me.
And they have falsified documents. This protocol of the arrest – we have all seen clearly that the time of the arrest was changed. I remember that document like a photograph from the night at the police station. I mentally noted well at the time that it said 2:14 am as the time of the arrest – i.e., exactly when I was in fact taken out of the special forces’ van where I had been for nearly two hours with 10 other detainees, and was handed over to the regular police who testified here. When I signed it – you see my signature – it said 2:14 am, which aligned exactly with the time-date metadata on my photos, videos and texts. Now it says 1:14 am, and you can see clearly it was whited out and written over. Changing an official document after a citizen has signed it is a crime.
With all due respect, you as a judge should be concerned that police witnesses have committed criminal violations in your court room – lied to you in their oral testimony, lied to you in their written statements, and falsified the official documents they submitted to you.
But even more than that, as it affects my case, the lying and falsification of documents which we have proven here by photographs, videos and text messages – all time and date-stamped by the iPhone metadata – means that the prosecutor’s evidence about the facts of the arrest fails entirely. The prosecution has failed to prove the basic elements of their case – the facts of the alleged criminal conduct, the facts of the arrest. So you cannot convict me of the charges against me, when the evidentiary basis of the prosecution has utterly collapsed. They failed to prove their case.
