CEDH · CASELAW;JUDGMENTS;CHAMBER;ENG — 23 mai 2024

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display:inline-block } .s44B8752F { width:177.11pt; display:inline-block } .s379BC09C { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sA622B7BC { margin-top:14pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s71C8BE52 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt }   FIFTH SECTION CASE OF SAAKASHVILI v. GEORGIA (Applications nos. 6232/20 and 22394/20)   JUDGMENT (Merits)   Art 6 §   1 (criminal) and Art 6 §   3 (d) • Fair hearing • Independent and impartial tribunal • Examination of witnesses • Conviction of former president of Georgia in two separate sets of criminal proceedings for acts committed whilst in office (complicity in criminal battery and misuse of authority, and abuse of official authority due to his exercise of presidential clemency respectively) • Single-judge composition of first-instance court that convicted applicant of abuse of official authority not lacking independence or impartiality (objective/functional) • Clerical or otherwise technical functions of judicial assistant not to be confounded with judicial role • Professional (trained) judge better equipped to maintain requisite detachment than lay judge or juror • Applicant’s defence rights in both proceedings not breached • Domestic courts’ administration of evidence in criminal proceedings in compliance with the Convention • Key witness statements constituting first-hand testimony, not hearsay • Applicant able to confront key witnesses during trials and to challenge their statements • Reasoned judgments addressing concerns as to witnesses • Lack of any arbitrariness Art 7 • Nullum crimen sine lege • Applicant’s conviction for abuse of official authority for granting a pardon during his presidency to high-ranking officials convicted of murder, reasonably foreseeable • Criminal-law provision on which conviction was based constituted an example of the legislative technique of “blanket reference” or “legislation by reference” which could not raise and issue under Art   7 §   1 as such • Applicant could not expect to enjoy immunity from individual criminal liability neither under relevant criminal-law provision nor under extended domestic constitutional framework • In light of comparative constitutional overview, applicant’s expectation that pan-European Constitutional custom would shield him from criminal liability for acts committed while in office in the exercise of his discretionary powers, unfounded • Deference given, having regard to principle of subsidiarity, to manner domestic courts addressed, by applying concept of checks and balances, to the constitutional dimension of the seeming dichotomy between the absolute nature of the presidential power of clemency and the possibility for that power to become object of abuse • Domestic courts explored applicant’s state of mind during commission of criminal offence • Domestic courts’ interpretation and application of the relevant domestic law both reasonable and consistent with the essence of the offence and within their remit   Prepared by the Registry. Does not bind the Court.   STRASBOURG 23 May 2024   FINAL   23/08/2024   This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision.   In the case of Saakashvili v. Georgia, The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:   Georges Ravarani , President ,   Arnfinn Bårdsen , ad hoc judge ,   Carlo Ranzoni,   Mārtiņš Mits,   Stéphanie Mourou-Vikström,   Mattias Guyomar,   Kateřina Šimáčková , judges , and Victor Soloveytchik, Section Registrar, Having regard to: the applications (nos.   6232/20 and 22394/20) against Georgia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by a Ukrainian national, Mr Mikheil Saakashvili (“the applicant”), on 27 January 2020 and 25 May 2020 respectively; the decision to give notice of the case to the Georgian Government (“the Government”) under Articles 6, 7 and 18 of the Convention; the fact that the Government of Ukraine, who had been   informed of their right to intervene in the light of the applicant’s nationality (Article 36 § 1 of the Convention and Rule 44 §§ 1 and 4 of the Rules of Court), did not avail themselves of that right; the withdrawal of Judge L. Chanturia, the judge elected in respect of Georgia (Rule 28 of the Rules of Court), and the decision of the President of the Chamber to designate Judge A. Bårdsen to sit as an ad hoc judge (Rule 29 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court); the parties’ observations on the admissibility and merits of the case; the joinder of the proceedings in the applications (Rule   42   §   1) and the ruling to take a separate decision on admissibility (Rule 54A § 1 in fine ); the Court’s decision of 1 March 2022 declaring the case admissible; the parties’ further written observations on the merits (Rule   59 §   1); the Chamber’s ruling that no hearing on the merits was required (Rule   59 §   3 in fine ); Having deliberated in private on 9 April 2024, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on the last mentioned date: INTRODUCTION 1.     The case concerns under Articles 6, 7 and 18 of the Convention the fairness and Convention compliance of two separate sets of criminal proceedings conducted against the applicant, a former President of Georgia. THE FACTS 2.     The applicant in both cases, Mr Mikheil Saakashvili, who was born in 1967, is currently serving a prison sentence in Georgia. He was represented before the Court by Mr G. Chiviashvili and Mr J. McBride, lawyers practising in Georgia and the United Kingdom respectively. 3.     The Georgian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Mr B. Dzamashvili, of the Ministry of Justice. 4.     The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. BACKGROUND 5 .     The applicant, who was a Georgian national by birth, was elected President of Georgia in January 2004, after the United National Movement (“the UNM”), a political party co-established and led by him, came to power in November 2003. By the time his second consecutive presidential term expired on 17 November 2013, the UNM, defeated by the political coalition Georgian Dream (which took its name from its largest constituent party – also named “Georgian Dream”) in the parliamentary elections of October 2012, became the main opposition force in the country (for more details, see Merabishvili v. Georgia [GC], no. 72508/13, §§ 9-13, 28 November 2017). The applicant left Georgia shortly after the expiry of his second presidential term in late 2013, settled in Ukraine and became a naturalised Ukrainian citizen. In taking Ukrainian nationality, he had to surrender his Georgian nationality, in accordance with Georgian legislation, which prohibited dual nationality. 6.     After the handover of power by the UNM to Georgian Dream in 2012, more than 20,000 complaints were lodged with the Office of the General Public Prosecutor of Georgia (“the OGPP”) by people claiming to have been victims of serious human-rights abuses committed during the UNM’s rule and the applicant’s presidency. Of those, 4,000 complaints concerned allegations of torture and ill-treatment. It was on the basis of those individual criminal complaints that the OGPP initiated criminal investigations, including against former high-ranking officials. The newly-formed government officially dubbed this process “the restoration of justice” ( სამართლიანობის აღდგენა ), publicly stated that investigating the wrongdoings of the past would be one of its key priorities, and indicated that there should be no impunity for former officials for past abuses. In order to ensure transparency and to benefit from international expertise, the OGPP allowed some of the most politically sensitive and/or legally complex criminal investigations to be monitored by the International Prosecution Advisory Panel, a body set up in 2014 and consisting of three foreign and highly experienced criminal-justice professionals. The Panel reviewed case ‑ file material relating to high-profile cases and advised the OGPP regarding the compliance of the prosecution process with the relevant international criminal-justice standards (ibid., § 261). 7 .     Two separate sets of criminal proceedings conducted against the applicant (which constitute the subject matter of the two instant applications) were part of the above-mentioned “restoration of justice” process. In both sets of proceedings, the applicant was tried and convicted in absentia since, residing in Ukraine until 29 September 2021 (see paragraph 61 below), he had chosen not to appear and had explicitly mandated a lawyer of his choice to represent his interests before the domestic courts, consenting to his trial in absentia . THE CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS ON CHARGES OF BATTERY AND MISUSE OF AUTHORITY (APPLICATION NO. 6232/20) The incident of 14 July 2005 8 .     On 14 July 2005 V.G., a member of parliament, was attacked by a group of heavily armed men while travelling in a car, together with his bodyguard and his driver, along a street in Tbilisi. As was later recalled both by the three victims and by independent eyewitnesses to the incident, the attackers were wearing riot police uniforms and were carrying automatic rifles. The victims and witnesses further testified, when questioned in the course of the subsequent investigation, that after V.G.’s car had stopped at a traffic light, it had suddenly been encircled and hemmed in by other cars, from which six armed men had emerged and begun smashing the windows of V.G.’s car. The attackers had forced both V.G. and his bodyguard out of the car at gunpoint, relentlessly beating them with rifle butts. As a result, V.G. had received grave, life-threatening injuries and had been permanently disfigured. In particular (as was later confirmed by medical reports), almost all of his facial bones had been fractured, with deep open wounds appearing on his face and head. The attackers had seized V.G.’s personal belongings, including his official firearm. 9 .     A criminal investigation into the incident of 14 July 2005 (which was classified as a robbery) was initiated on the same day. The investigating authority interviewed a number of independent witnesses (including staff at a nearby car wash, residents of apartment blocks overlooking the crime scene and passers-by). All of the witnesses confirmed that the attackers had been wearing the easily recognisable uniforms of the riot police. V.G., when interviewed by the investigating authority, stated that a few days before the incident he had received an anonymous telephone call during which death threats had been made. In particular, the unknown male caller had warned him that “a terrorist attack” would be carried out against him unless he apologised for having insulted the President of the country (that is, the applicant) in a newspaper article that had been published on 29 June 2005 (see paragraph 18 below). The victim also recalled that during his beating one of the attackers had uttered the following phrase: “After this, you will no longer be able to write anything about our President!” V.G. told the investigating authority that the attack had therefore hardly been a random robbery and that there was a suspicion that it might have been carried out by the law-enforcement authorities on orders emanating from the applicant. V.G. also told the investigators that in the early morning of 14 July 2005 his driver had noticed that his usual car, which was equipped with armoured windows, unexpectedly appeared to be having technical issues with the braking system, for which reason V.G. had borrowed his wife’s car for that particular day. 10.     The investigation into the incident of 14 July 2005 was discontinued in September 2005, without, it is alleged, the authorities having attempted to verify in any manner the victims’ and witnesses’ statements about the possible involvement of a riot police squad, and notwithstanding V.G.’s accusation against the applicant. Reopening of the investigation into the incident of 14 July 2005 11 .     On 13 November 2012, after the change of the ruling forces in the country as a result of the parliamentary elections of October 2012 (see paragraph 5 above), a new criminal investigation was launched by the OGPP into the incident of 14 July 2005. Subsequently, and until November 2014 (see paragraph 20 below), the OGPP conducted a number of investigative measures. Specifically, it conducted additional interviews of V.G., his bodyguard and his driver – all of whom recalled the circumstances of the attack in the same terms as those that they had used when testifying in 2005. They additionally stated that on the day before the incident – that is, on 13   July 2005 – patrol police had stopped and examined V.G.’s armoured car, making enquiries about the owner of the car but without giving any reason for the police check. 12 .     The OGPP summoned I.O. (who had held the post of Minister of Defence in 2005 – see paragraph 68) for questioning in relation to public statements that he had made in 2007, when he had openly accused the applicant of masterminding the attack on V.G. I.O. stated to the OGPP that his previous public statements had been true. In particular, I.O. reiterated the statement that he had made to the effect that in June or July 2005 the applicant had personally and explicitly ordered him to arrange (using the Ministry’s resources) for a physical attack on V.G. to take place. Having refused to implement that request, I.O. had subsequently heard that the task had been reassigned to (and eventually carried out on the instructions of) another of the applicant’s ministers at the time – Ivane Merabishvili, the then Minister of the Interior (hereinafter referred to as “I.M.”; for more details regarding subsequent criminal proceedings against him, see Merabishvili , cited above, §§ 9-59). 13 .     The OGPP also questioned N.B., who had held the post of president of the Georgian Parliament in 2005 (see paragraph 62 below). The witness stated that in the immediate aftermath of the incident of 14 July 2005 she had had a chance to speak privately with the applicant, who had not hidden his satisfaction at what had happened to V.G. As regards other details of her interview with the investigating authority, N.B. made the same statement that she later reiterated during the trial (see paragraph 23 below). 14 .     The OGPP also questioned L.Sh., who had been the chief of the secret surveillance unit of the Special Operative Department (“the SOD”) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The witness confirmed that on 13 July 2005 his direct hierarchical superior – E.K., the director of the SOD – had tasked him with secretly monitoring V.G.’s communications and movements, in anticipation of a special operation to be carried out by the Ministry’s riot police. According to L.Sh., E.K. had mentioned to him that the operation was being planned on the direct orders of the country’s President. 15 .     The OGPP then questioned V.Z., who had been the head of the riot police at the time of the events in question. V.Z. stated that E.K., the director of the SOD, had on 13 July 2005 ordered him to assign a small group of riot police officers to a criminal-police operation, the exact purpose of which had not been disclosed to him at that time. After the group had been set up, it had been transferred to the command of G.S., another senior SOD officer. V.Z. also told the OGPP that approximately two weeks after the incident of 14 July 2005, he – together with some other senior Interior Ministry officers – had attended a meeting with the then Minister of the Interior (I.M.) and the President of Georgia. During that meeting, I.M. – in an informal and casual conversation with the applicant – had commended V.Z. for the successful completion of the operation against V.G. 16 .     The OGPP also identified and questioned the six officers of the riot police who had participated in the attack on V.G. The officers confirmed all the details of the attack that had previously been described by the victims (see paragraphs 8   and 9 above). They added that they had been misled by G.S. (the officer in charge of the squad – see paragraph 15 above) about the true identity of the victim. They had not known at that time that V.G. was a member of parliament. Rather, G.S. had told them that they had to disarm and physically assault “a very dangerous criminal” and punish him for being “an enemy of the nation and a traitor”. G.S. had further requested them to search V.G. and seize all his personal belongings because the latter was accused of transporting “classified documents concerning State secrets”. The six officers also testified that a few days after the incident of 14 July 2005 the director of the SOD, E.K., had personally met with each of them, awarding each of them a bonus of 500 United States dollars for their successful conduct of the operation. They were also requested not to speak with anybody about what had happened. 17.     Between April and November 2014 the OGPP attempted to find out the whereabouts of G.S. and E.K. in order to summon them for questioning about the information provided by the other questioned Interior Ministry officers (see paragraphs 15 and 16 above), but both individuals had already fled the country by that time. 18 .     The OGPP further established that the press article which, according to V.G., might have prompted the above-described violent retribution carried out on the applicant’s behalf (see paragraph 9 above) had taken the form of an interview published in the Rezonansi newspaper on 29 June 2005. In that interview, V.G. had firstly claimed that the President of Georgia had stolen some of V.G.’s property and had then made a number of offensive statements about the private life of the President’s wife. 19.     Before concluding the investigation and deciding whether criminal charges could be brought against the applicant, the OGPP solicited an opinion from the International Prosecution Advisory Panel (see paragraph 5 above). The Panel, after examining all the case material, issued a conclusion on 23   March 2014, which concluded as follows: “We believe that the existing material is legally and factually sufficient to proceed with the prosecution of [the applicant], I[.]M[.], E[.]K[.] and G[.]S[.] for various offences relating to a physical assault on V[.]G[.] on 14 July 2005. We believe that you should continue your investigation and move towards trial, where any remaining issues will be addressed during the adversarial process.” 20 .     On 10 November 2014 the OGPP charged the applicant with complicity in committing criminal battery (Article 117 § 5 (e) of the Criminal Code) and misuse of authority by resorting to violence (Article 333 § 3 (b) of the Code). He was accused of having masterminded, with the help of high ‑ ranking officials of the Ministry of the Interior, the attack on V.G. as retribution for public statements made by the latter, which had contained offensive speech against the applicant and his wife. On 11 November 2014 similar charges were also brought, in separate sets of criminal proceedings, against I.M., E.K. and G.S., as well as against the six riot police officers. The applicant’s trial and his conviction on 28 June 2018 21.     On 28 June 2018 the Tbilisi City Court – after conducting a trial during which all the relevant witnesses were heard in person and other pieces of evidence were examined in the presence of the applicant’s lawyer – convicted the applicant in absentia of the offences with which he had been charged. 22.     During the trial – in reply to the applicant’s lawyer, who had challenged the credibility of N.B.’s statements on the basis of the fact that she was a political opponent of his client – N.B. stated the following: “Yes, one can say that I am a political opponent [of the applicant]. However, I can give reassurances ... that I take great responsibility for each and every word [contained in my testimony]. In the present case, I am absolutely objective in my testimony because what is at stake here is not my personal opinion of political events. ... We are discussing the facts of a criminal case here, and I have told you all the truth under oath ..., and I stand by my statements.” 23 .     As can be seen from the record of the trial, N.B. stated before the City Court that immediately after the attack on V.G. she had visited him in hospital. The severely injured victim had told her about the circumstances surrounding his personal differences with the applicant, adding that he had no doubt that it was the latter who was behind the attack. N.B. further recalled that immediately after visiting him in hospital she had gone to see the applicant and had asked him if the victim was right in his assumptions about the applicant’s involvement in the attack, in reply to which the applicant (as N.B. told the court) had commented: “Why? Doesn’t he [V.G.] deserve to be duffed up?” A heated exchange had then taken place between the applicant and N.B., with the latter reproaching the former for employing State resources for the purposes of pursuing his “personal vendetta”. That conversation had ended, according to N.B.’s account of events, with the applicant trying to calm her down by “promising not to resort to violent methods in the future.” N.B. also added that after the incident the applicant had asked N.B. to initiate a procedure aimed at suspending V.G.’s status as a member of parliament. She also stated, in reply to an objection made by the applicant’s lawyer, that although it was possible that some other high-ranking State officials could have masterminded the attack on the victim without any direct orders from the applicant, she knew – having held the highest State offices in the country – “all too well how things worked”, adding that she was confident that, in the absence of a direct order from the applicant, nobody (not even the Minister of the Interior) would have ever dared to assault a member of parliament. 24.     In the same vein, when I.O. was questioned by the applicant’s lawyer during the trial as to whether his previous incriminating statements (see paragraph 12 above) might have been conditioned by his personal animosity against the applicant, I.O. replied that, being under oath, “there could be no question of my committing the criminal offence of perjury” and that all of his statements were therefore true and accurate. To emphasise further the fact that his testimony against the applicant was trustworthy, I.O. also recalled that the first time that he had reported receiving the criminal order from the applicant regarding the “punishment” ( დასჯა ) of V.G. (see paragraph 25 below) had been in 2007 (see paragraph 69 below), when the applicant had still been the President of the country and the leader of the ruling authorities. 25 .     As can be seen from the record of the trial, I.O. reiterated before the City Court the statements that he had given during the investigation stage. That is to say, he confirmed again that shortly after V.G.’s newspaper interview had been published on 29 June 2005, the applicant had explicitly ordered him “to exemplarily punish” ( სამაგალითო დასჯა ) V.G. for the insults that he had made against his wife. However, I.O. had refused to carry out that order. During another meeting between I.O. and the applicant that had taken place shortly after the incident of 14 July 2005, the latter had mockingly told the former, in reference to that incident, that “the thing that you could not do has been brilliantly executed by [I.M., the then Minister of the Interior)”. 26.     As can be seen from the record of the trial, the City Court also heard V.G., the driver and the bodyguard who had been with him during the incident of 14 July 2005. They recounted the assault in the same manner and in the same detail as they had during the investigation stage (see paragraph 11 above). 27.     The trial court also heard eight former officers of the secret surveillance unit of the SOD – including L.Sh., its chief officer – who all acknowledged that they had received direct orders from E.K., the former Director of the SOD, to monitor the daily movements and mobile telephone conversations of V.G. in preparation for the assault on the latter in July 2005. The same officers further confirmed that, as part of that preparatory work, they had tampered with the braking system of the applicant’s armoured car in order to prompt him to start using a less secure car so that the forthcoming special operation would have a greater chance of success. L.Sh. further reiterated before the trial court that E.K. had told him that the operation against V.G. was being planned on the orders of the applicant (see paragraph 14 above). 28.     The trial court also heard the six officers of the Ministry of the Interior’s riot police who had participated in the attack on V.G. The officers confirmed all the details of the attack that they had previously given during the investigation stage (see paragraph 16 above). 29 .     The trial court also heard V.Z., the head of the riot police at the time of the events in question, who reiterated all of the statements that he had previously made during the investigation stage. Among other details, V.Z. reiterated before the City Court that he had had a chance to briefly meet with I.M. (the then Minister of the Interior) and the applicant towards the end of July 2005 during an official event hosted by the Ministry of the Interior. During that meeting, the Minister had praised V.Z., in the presence of the applicant, in the following terms: “You see, V.Z. is a real professional ... He is the one to be congratulated for how the [V.G.] issue has been handled”. According to V.Z., the applicant had not shown any signs of surprise upon hearing that remark but, on the contrary, had warmly thanked V.Z. for the completion of the task entrusted to him. 30.     The City Court also examined, in the presence of the parties’ representatives, the relevant data received from mobile phone operators, which – according to an analysis of traffic between the relevant mobile-phone antennae in Tbilisi – showed that there had been a series of calls between the applicant, the Minister of the Interior (I.M), the director of the SOD (E.K.) and the head of the riot police (V.Z.) shortly before and after the incident of 14 July 2005. 31 .     In its conviction judgment of 28 June 2018, the Tbilisi City Court, in reply to the applicant’s challenge to the credibility of the testimony given by N.B. and I.O., stated that “the fact that both witnesses are political opponents of the applicant could not mean that the statements they gave in the criminal case were untrue by default”. The court stated that it had assessed the two witnesses’ statements in combination with the other pieces of evidence available in the case file – namely the statements of all the other witnesses and the data retrieved from the mobile phone operators – and that “it was the totality of all the evidence that proved beyond reasonable doubt the applicant’s guilt in masterminding the attack on V.G.”. The City Court specifically noted that the applicant’s contention that only two witnesses (I.O. and N.B.) had accused him of being directly involved in the crime was factually incorrect, as the relevant statements given by V.Z constituted equally direct incriminating evidence. 32.     The applicant’s lawyer appealed against the conviction, complaining that it was largely based on the statements of I.O. and N.B., which constituted hearsay evidence and were unreliable, given the history of the political rivalry between the two witnesses and the applicant. 33 .     A final domestic decision – rejecting the applicant’s appeal, upholding his conviction and sentencing him to six years’ imprisonment (with an additional two-year ban on entering public service) – was delivered by the Supreme Court, sitting in camera, on 31 July 2019 (served on the applicant’s lawyer on 6 August 2019). 34.     The Supreme Court stated in its decision that, inter alia , “the former political rivalry between the applicant and the witnesses N.B. and I.O. could not in itself have rendered the statements of these witnesses inadmissible for lack of credibility; rather, those statements ought to be assessed in combination with the body of all other available evidence”. The court also held that “it was exactly such an overall assessment that led the lower court to endorse the credibility of the two witnesses’ statements”. As regards the scope of the applicant’s involvement in the assault on V.G., the Supreme Court deemed that it was not necessary to show that the applicant had been involved in the planning “of each and every step of the crime in question.” It was sufficient to show (as the lower court had indeed shown) that the assault on the victim had been perpetrated by State agents who had been in a chain of command originating from the President of the country. THE CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS ON CHARGES OF ABUSE OF OFFICIAL AUTHORITY (APPLICATION NO. 22394/20) Background 35 .     As was noted by the Court in its judgment in the case of Enukidze and Girgvliani v. Georgia (no. 25091/07, §§   15 ‑ 193, 26 April 2011), at around 1 a.m. on 28 January 2006, a young man, Sandro Girgvliani, went with a male friend, L.B., to a café in Tbilisi, to see a lady that he was courting at the time. She happened to be sitting at a table together with a number of senior officials from the Ministry of Interior, among whom was also the Minister of the Interior’s wife (“the Minister’s wife”). Sandro Girgvliani spoke to his lady friend, expressing displeasure at seeing her in the company of unknown men and referring in dismissive terms to the Minister’s wife. According to L.B., who survived the assault described below, after he and Sandro Girgvliani and L.B. had left the café they were forcefully, at gunpoint, pushed into a vehicle by unknown men and driven away to a cemetery outside Tbilisi; there the two young men were made to strip and were severely beaten (separately and at a distance from each other) by several unidentified people who eventually left. L.B. managed to get up at some point, did not see his friend anywhere and made his way to a service station, from where he called the police.   At about 3 p.m. on 28 January 2006 Sandro Girgvliani’s body, naked from the waist up and covered with many wounds and lesions, including twelve knife cuts (mostly slashes) to his throat, was found, lying in the snow in the woods near the cemetery (hereinafter “the Girgvliani murder case”). 36 .     A criminal investigation into the Girgvliani murder case was opened on 28 January 2006 by the Ministry of the Interior, and a number of important investigative measures were immediately thereafter undertaken by the Ministry’s investigators. In March 2006, after the case had been taken away from the Ministry and handed over to Tbilisi City Public Prosecutor’s Office, four senior officers of the Constitutional Security Department (“the CSD”) of the Ministry of the Interior – G.A., A.A., A.Gh. and M.B. – were arrested on suspicion of abducting and assaulting Sandro Girgvliani and L.B. The investigation concluded that on the night in question, as the four suspects had been entering the café to join the group of their Ministry colleagues, they had come across Sandro Girgvliani – who had been leaving the café and insulting their colleagues; in retaliation, they had abducted and beaten Sandro Girgvliani and L.B. On 6 July 2006 the four officials of the CSD were convicted of premeditated false imprisonment with life‑threatening violence, wilful bodily harm resulting in death and abuse of authority. Their conviction was upheld by the Tbilisi Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Georgia on 11 December 2006 and 27 July 2007 respectively (with minor amendments in respect of the legal classification of the criminal charges); the four convict officers received sentences ranging from six and a half to seven and a half years in prison (for more details regarding the different stages of the criminal investigation and trial, see Enukidze and Girgvliani , cited above, §§   23-193). 37 .     On 24 November 2008 the applicant, who was the President of Georgia at the material time, decided to grant G.A., A.A., A.Gh. and M.B. a measure of presidential clemency and reduced their respective sentences by half. As the presidential measure of clemency also rendered the former CSD officers eligible for release on licence, the four men lodged an application with the relevant body in the Prisons Department of the Ministry of Justice (“the prison authority”) for their release. On the basis of a unanimous opinion issued by the prison authority, which commended the four men for their exemplary conduct in prison and described the crime committed by them as “physical aggression towards other persons that arose from a verbal altercation” (“ ურთიერთშელაპარაკების ნიადაგზე ფიზიკური შეურაცხყოფა მიაყენეს მოქალაქეებს ”), the Tbilisi City Court decided, on 5 September 2009, to release the four convicts on licence (ibid., §§   204 ‑ 205). 38.     In a judgment of 26 April 2011, the Court found a violation of the procedural limb of Article 2 of the Convention in a case brought by Sandro Girgvliani’s parents on account of the ineffective criminal investigation conducted by the domestic authorities into the Girgvliani murder case. Thus, the Court, having assessed in detail the various stages of the investigation, the judicial proceedings as well as the adequacy of the punishment of the four convicted officers of the CSD, found that the investigation in question had manifestly lacked the requisite independence, impartiality, objectivity and thoroughness (ibid., §§   244-78). Addressing, in particular, the adequacy of the punishment and the role of the presidential pardon granted by the applicant in that connection, the Court made the following statements: “273. In any event, it is not so much the initial sentences imposed on the offenders as the subsequent manner of their implementation which is at the core of the problem. The Court is struck by the fact that on 24 November 2008 the President of Georgia found it appropriate to pardon State agents convicted of such a heinous crime by reducing the remainder of their sentences by half. Then, as if that measure of clemency was not generous enough, on 5 September 2009 the prison authority recommended and the relevant domestic court granted the convicts’ release on licence. ... 274. However, the Court considers that when an agent of the State, in particular a law-enforcement officer, is convicted of a crime that violates Article 2 of the Convention, the granting of an amnesty or pardon can scarcely serve the purpose of an adequate punishment .... On the contrary, the Court expects States to be all the more stringent when punishing their own law‑enforcement officers for the commission of such serious life‑endangering crimes than they are with ordinary offenders, because what is at stake is not only the issue of the individual criminal-law liability of the perpetrators but also the State’s duty to combat the sense of impunity the offenders may consider they enjoy by virtue of their very office and to maintain public confidence in and respect for the law-enforcement system .... 275. In the light of the foregoing, the Court concludes that the sentences as initially imposed upon the convicts by the domestic courts and actually implemented by the relevant domestic authorities did not constitute adequate punishment for the crime committed. .... 276. [T]he relevant circumstances of the case allow the Court to draw the conclusion that the domestic authorities were lacking in candour in the conduct of the investigation. Even if the failings of some of those authorities would not alone have been sufficient for a finding of the inadequacy of the investigation, their coexistence, cumulative effect is more than enough in this regard. Indeed, the Court is struck by how the different branches of State power – the Ministry of the Interior, as regards the initial shortcomings of the investigation, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, as regards the remaining omissions of the investigation, the Prisons Department, as regards the unlawful placement of the convicts in the same cell, the domestic courts, as regards the deficient trial and the convicts’ early release, the President of Georgia, as regards the unreasonable leniency towards the convicts, and so on – all acted in concert in preventing justice from being done in this gruesome homicide case.” Repeat investigation into the Girgvliani murder case and the applicant’s indictment 39.     On 26 November 2012, as part of the measures undertaken by the respondent State to remedy the violation found by the Court in its judgment of 26 April 2011 in the case of Enukidze and Girgvliani (cited above), the OGPP launched a repeat investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Girgvliani murder case. 40 .     When questioned by the OGPP on 26 and 28 November 2012, the above-mentioned four former officers of the CSD (see paragraph 36 above), who by that time had already been released from prison (see paragraph 37 above), revealed the following facts for the first time. They stated that they had received an order from D.A., the then Director of the CSD for the abduction and “exemplary punishment” of the victim on 21 January 2006. After the killing had prompted a significant public outcry in the country, D.A. had met with G.A., A.A., A.Gh. and M.B. and told them that there was no other option for the four of them but to confess to the crime. At the same time, D.A. had insisted that they should remain absolutely silent about his own involvement in the incident. In exchange for such loyalty, D.A. promised the four officers that their families would receive considerable monetary compensation, that they themselves would be given the most comfortable conditions of detention and that their prison terms would, moreover, be reduced by means of a presidential pardon and/or the granting of an amnesty. 41.     In respect of the prospect of their early release from prison, D.A. had told the officers that he had personally obtained a promise from the President of Georgia that he would pardon them after they had served a certain part of whatever sentences that would be imposed on them. After they had been convicted on 6 July 2006, the four officers had indeed been placed in a newly ‑ built prison, where their cells had been equipped with non-standard, comfortable beds, refrigerators and other household appliances, and they had been provided with an Internet connection, cable television and the services of a personal cook and a maid. They had also been allowed to use their mobile telephones without any limitation and to receive an unlimited number of visitors. On 24 November 2008 the four convicted prisoners’ sentences had been reduced by half on the basis of a presidential pardon granted by the applicant, and on 5 September 2009 they had been released from prison, having served only three years of their six-year sentences. 42.     In the light of the above-mentioned information, on 27 November 2014 the OGPP, opening a separate investigation, charged the applicant with the offence of abuse of power by a public official holding a political post (Article 332   § 2 of the Criminal Code) on account of the presidential pardon granted on 24   November 2008 to the above-mentioned four former officers of the CSD. Specifically, he was accused of having granted that pardon in breach of the relevant domestic legal procedure and for the purposes of perverting the course of justice in the Girgvliani murder case. Within the framework of the second, separate investigation, the OGPP questioned a number of former high-ranking members of the UNM ruling forces, including I.O. and N.B. (see paragraphs 12 and 13 above). Those witnesses stated that their personal observation of the applicant in 2006 had led them to believe that the applicant had personally promised both D.A. (the then Director of the CSD) and I.M. (the then Minister of the Interior) that he would grant a pardon to the four officers after they had served part of their prison sentences (for more details in respect of those witnesses’ statements, see paragraphs 45 and 46 below). 43.     As another consequence of the repeat investigation into the Girgvliani murder case, additional criminal charges were brought on unspecified dates and in separate sets of criminal proceedings against I.M., D.A. and certain other officers of the Ministry of the Interior on account of their own respective roles in the murder case and the obstruction to its investigation. Trial 44 .     After the applicant’s trial had started, numerous witnesses were examined, under oath, in the presence of the applicant’s lawyer. The most important of those witnesses were as follows. 45 .     I.O., who held the post of Minister of Defence at the material time (see paragraph 12 above), confirmed all of the statements that he had previously given to the investigator: he specifically stated that he had had a meeting with the applicant sometime after the murder of Sandro Girgvliani had taken place on 27   January 2006, and that during that meeting the applicant had shown that he was in full possession of all the details of the crime – including the fact that D.A. and the Minister’s wife had been implicated in the murder (see paragraph 35 above and Enukidze and Girgvliani , cited above, §§ 3 and 15 ‑ 18). The applicant had told I.O. duri ng that meeting that the applicant had no other option but to do everything in his power to mitigate the damage that the cr