4.5 Execution, Torture, and Other Degrading Treatment of Georgian Prisoners of Warby Ossetian Forces, at times with Russian Forces

Russian and Ossetian forces detained at least 13 Georgian military servicemen during active fighting. All these detainees were entitled to prisoner of war (POW) status and should have been treated as such. Human Rights Watch interviewed four, post-release, all of whom had been captured in Tskhinvali by Ossetian militias on August 8. Human Rights Watch also interviewed one of the Ossetian militia fighters responsible for holding the Georgian soldiers for the first three days following their capture. All four Georgian military servicemen were held in informal places of detention, including a dormitory and schools, for several days, and were then transferred to Ossetian police. Ossetian police held several Georgian soldiers for six days, including three of the four interviewed by Human Rights Watch. They transferred one of the Georgian serviceman interviewed by Human Rights Watch to Russian custody, where he was treated for wounds. Georgian soldiers reported that they had been subjected to severe torture and ill-treatment throughout their detention by Ossetian forces. Human Rights Watch documented the execution of three Georgian servicemen while in the custody of Ossetian forces.

Ossetian forces eventually transferred 13 Georgian prisoners of war to Russian forces, and Russian authorities exchanged them for five Russian prisoners of war on August 19.[531]

Russian forces had or ought to have had full knowledge that Ossetians detained Georgian servicemen. They apparently participated in the execution of two Georgian soldiers, as well as in interrogations of Georgian POWs in Ossetian custody. Furthermore, the Georgian soldiers were held in Tskhinvali, over which Russia exercised effective control from August 9, and therefore are to be regarded as having fallen into Russia's power. Russia was therefore obligated to afford them POW status and to treat them in conformity with the protections of the Third Geneva Convention, which include absolute prohibitions on ill-treatment and require POWs to be treated humanely and kept in good health.[532] The execution, torture, and ill-treatment of prisoners of war are grave breaches of the Third Geneva Convention and constitute war crimes.[533] The ICCPR and ECHR also provide an absolute prohibition on torture and other degrading or inhuman treatment and an obligation to protect the right to life of those in detention.[534]

Beatings and Humiliation during Initial Days of Detention

Three Georgian servicemen interviewed by Human Rights Watch-Davit Malachini, Imeda Kutashvili, and Kakha Zirakishvili-were detained together by Ossetian forces on the afternoon of August 8.[535]

The three were among a group of seven Georgian soldiers Ossetian forces took to the basement of a four-story building, where Ossetian women and elderly as well as wounded Ossetian militia fighters were hiding.[536] Although some soldiers described the building as an apartment block, an Ossetian militia fighter interviewed by Human Rights Watch and involved in the detentions stated that the building was actually a dormitory of the agricultural technical institute.[537] The Georgian soldiers were given some food, water, and cigarettes on the first day of detention.[538] That evening additional men arrived at the building, including some wearing helmets with plastic masks. According to Davit Malachini, a 26-year-old sergeant, "They kicked us, cursed us, and beat us with the butts of their guns. They spoke Russian and Ossetian."[539] Imeda Kutashvili, 21, who had been serving in the military for only nine months, recalled, "They were beating us and swearing at us, saying, 'You pigs, why did you come here [to Tskhinvali]?'"[540]

The fourth Georgian soldier Human Rights Watch interviewed was Zaza Kavtiashvili. On August 9 Kavtiashvili, 32, who had been shot in the knee during street fighting in Tskhinvali that day and had been hiding on the ground floor of the dormitory, crawled down to the basement to seek shelter for the night. He had no idea that Ossetian forces and others, including the group of Georgian POWs, were there. Ossetian forces captured him and held him with the others. Kavtiashvili recalled the moment of his detention:

They were as surprised as I was that I crawled right to them. But there was nothing I could do. I could not walk. My leg was numb. They started beating me as soon as they detained me. They beat me on the head with the butt of a gun. They stood on my wounded leg and demanded to know where I had dropped my flak jacket.[541]

The Ossetian captors held the POWs in the dormitory for two nights. On the morning of August 10 they transferred all eight POWs to a school, possibly School No. 6, on the outskirts of Tskhinvali. The Ossetians forced the POWs to walk approximately two kilometers through Tskhinvali; the others had to carry Kavtiashvili because he could not walk. On the way, Russian troops, Ossetian forces, and civilians beat and humiliated the group.[542] According to Kavtiashvili, "Anyone who wanted to beat us, beat us. I fainted several times because I had already lost so much blood. I was in a lot of pain. Some people attacked us and grabbed dirt and shoved it into the mouths of the guys carrying me, saying, 'You wanted this land, well here it is!'"[543] Their route took them through Tskhinvali central square. Davit Malachini told Human Rights Watch, "When we got to the square, whoever wanted to beat us, beat us … They kicked and punched us, and those who were armed hit us with gun butts. We fell to the ground. They threatened us, saying, 'Let's kill them. Let's execute them.'"[544] Kakha Zirakishvili, age 33, recalled,

They took us to the very center of the city, where many people beat us: Ossetian militia, local residents, Ossetian troops, anyone who wanted to… They beat us with gun butts, iron bars, whatever they had: wooden sticks, chairs, even. Some of us lost consciousness. When we lost consciousness [some of the attackers] would urinate on our faces to wake us up and began beating us again.[545]

From the central square the men were then taken to the school, which was apparently functioning as a makeshift base. According to Zaza Kavtiashvili, as many as a few hundred Ossetian fighters were at the school, where they would eat and rest before going back outside.[546] Ossetian forces and civilians again beat the POWs upon their arrival at the school. According to Davit Malachini, "First they beat us outside of the school. Ten or fifteen people would come and beat us, then another group. Someone broke my rib. I couldn't breathe normally. They beat me on the eyes, back, legs, and head."[547]

Execution of Three Georgian POWs

The Ossetian captors took the Georgian POWs into a small room that led off from a gymnasium, where Russian federal forces were among those present.[548] The Ossetians and Russians inspected each of the Georgian soldiers' hands, apparently in an attempt to determine whether any of them bore the calluses characteristic of artillerists or tank gunners. The captors singled out one of the men as a tank gunner and ordered him into a small shower room next door. The other POWs identified the tank driver as Sopromadze but did not know his first name.[549]

In describing what happened next, Davit Malachini told Human Rights Watch, "They called the tank gunner out into a small room and then we heard shooting. Quite a lot of machine gun fire." Malachini, Zirakishvili, Kutashvili and one other Georgian POW were then also called into the room. "The tank gunner was lying face down. They had shot him in the back of the head. We saw that his head was open and his brain was exposed. It looked like a watermelon cut in half."[550]

Although the Ossetian captors claimed that they had shot the tank gunner because he was trying to escape, both Zirakishvili and Kutashvili described the scene in the room as one in which some hasty preparation had apparently taken place. "Some kind of tarp or tent lay on the floor and, from the position of the body lying on the tarp, it seemed that he had been kneeling at the edge of the tarp when they shot him," said Zirakishvili.[551] An Ossetian militia fighter, who was among the captors, confirmed that the tank gunner was singled out and taken away deliberately. "One [of the prisoners], a tank gunner, was taken away by some of our own [Ossetians] and Russians. I don't know what happened to him but we had seven prisoners again," he told Human Rights Watch.[552]

The four POWs were then made to carry the body outside into a courtyard,[553] while the Ossetian captors threatened to kill them.[554] Kutashvili stated that Russian federal troops were also in this yard, and one Russian soldier with a gun, whom, based on his appearance, Kutashvili believed was ethnic Russian, approached him saying, "I'm going to kill you now." However, another Russian federal soldier, whom Kutashvili described as "a large man with a full beard," and whom he believes was possibly Chechen, intervened to stop the shooting, claiming that Kutashvili reminded him of his own son who also had been wounded in battle. The first soldier pushed the bearded soldier aside and again made as if to shoot Kutashvili. The bearded soldier punched the first soldier, and then protected Kutashvili from further threats or beatings that night.[555]

The other POWs were beaten again after moving the body outside. Two POWs were made to clean up the blood and remains in the shower room.[556] The Georgian soldiers then carried the body of the tank gunner to a location near a railway line where they were ordered to dig a grave.[557] According to Malachini, by the time they finished digging the grave, it was dark, and so they wrapped the body in the tarp with a rope and left it unburied.[558]

The next day, August 11, the POWs witnessed one of their group, whom they identified only as 21-year-old Khubulov, being singled out and led away, apparently because his surname was Ossetian and he claimed to be ethnic Ossetian. Khubulov was beaten and dragged away from the others, while the captors yelled at him, saying, "You will die! You are a traitor."[559] The Georgian POWs we interviewed never saw Khubulov again. When Zaza Kavtiashvili asked some of his Ossetian captors about Khubulov's fate, one of them replied, "We [killed him] because he was an Ossetian traitor."[560]

The Ossetian militia fighter who was among the captors and was interviewed by Human Rights Watch apparently corroborated Khubulov's execution. He told us, "And then a Chechen fighter [possibly from the Russian Ministry of Defense's Vostok battalion], who came to us with some Russians and Chechens realized that one of our prisoners was an ethnic Ossetian. He could not believe it at first, and then got very angry. He said that traitors had to be punished, and took him out in the yard and just shot him."[561]

Human Rights Watch documented a third extrajudicial killing of a Georgian soldier, which also took place on August 11. A law enforcement officer of the South Ossetian forces described to us how they had executed a Georgian armed man:

The day before yesterday [August 11, 2008], the Georgians killed two of my soldiers in the village of Tamarasheni. We had been conducting a sweep operation there. We detained three of them. Two of them didn't do anything to us so we just let them go-we couldn't take them anywhere as I had to take care of my own men first. The third one seemed to be high on something-a normal person would have surrendered, and this one was shooting at us instead. We questioned him. He was the one who killed our guys. We executed him.[562]

Torture and Ill-Treatment by Ossetian Police

The Ossetian captors transferred the group to what was apparently Ossetian police custody. According to one of the Ossetian militia captors, "We did not know what to do with all these prisoners and just passed them on to the [Ossetian] Ministry of Interior on August 11."[563] The POWs described these Ossetian forces as all having identical "star-shaped badges on their belts," as being "physically big and strong," and possibly being Ossetian special forces.[564]

Although Ossetian forces eventually transferred the injured Zaza Kavtiashvili to Russian forces that day, they first interrogated him and beat and humiliated him. He described the ordeal:

They separated us in the yard. [They] started interrogating us. They would beat me, question me, then beat me, all the while also insulting and humiliating me. They brought a Georgian flag into the yard and ordered me to spit on it. I refused. One of the Ossetians put a Makarov gun into my mouth and threatened to kill me if I would not spit. One of the Ossetians also put his foot on my wounded knee and pressed hard on it. Someone from the second floor of the building ordered them to stop this and then they took us inside the building to a room. There they beat me with chairs, metal sticks, and the butts of guns. They broke my right arm. After all this they handed me over to the Russian forces.

After being transferred to Russian military custody, Kavtiashvili underwent surgery on his leg at a Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations hospital in Tskhinvali, and after several days was taken to Java and from there flown to a military hospital in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, for further treatment. Kavtiashvili was exchanged with other Georgian POWs on August 19.[565]

Several Georgian POWs, including three interviewed by Human Rights Watch, were held in Ossetian police custody until August 17, when they were handed over to Russian troops. Ossetian police held the Georgian POWs in degrading conditions and subjected them to torture and severe ill-treatment. The soldiers were held in pairs in small cells and given very little water and almost no food for six days. Ossetian police interrogated the soldiers a number of times. One Georgian POW stated that Russian military forces visited them while in detention several times and also sometimes interrogated them.[566] Although both Imeda Kutashvili and Kakha Zirakishvili had been wounded during the Russian aerial bombardment, they received no medical care during their 12 days in Ossetian detention.[567]

 

Kakha Zirakishvili told Human Rights Watch about his experience in police detention, saying that the previous days' beatings "were nothing compared to what we faced at this place":

They put us into cells and gave us only 100 grams of water for two people per day. They beat us regularly. Five or seven guys would come into the cell, beat us, get tired, go out, rest, come back, beat us. They would beat us until we were unconscious. They punched us, kicked us, hit us with hammers and with gun butts. They hit my hands with a hammer. They broke a bone in my right hand, as well as in [my fingers]. They also beat me a lot in my face and head with a hammer and even in the mouth. I lost one tooth on the bottom as a result of the beating. Sometimes, two people would stand on my arm, while another burned my hands with a lighter.… They gave us bread once … but they gave us so little water for six days that I couldn't eat anything.[568]

Davit Malachini and Imeda Kutashvili were held in the same cell and described similar treatment. Malachini told Human Rights Watch,

Three Ossetians would come regularly, beat us for five, ten, fifteen minutes, leave, come back again. They would beat us from morning until late at night. This went on for six days. They tortured us. They put a bucket on my head and would beat a stick against the bucket. Two guys would stand on my arm and a third guy would burn my finger with a lighter. The skin was totally burned through to the bone. They beat my ankles with iron rods and broke one bone on my foot. They beat me on the head with butts of Makarov pistols.

We were only given a small amount of water and some bread and once some buckwheat. But I could not eat because I was in so much pain. My jaw had been beaten. They swore at us and cursed at us saying, "Did you want our land? Did you want our money? If you wanted our land you can go and dig your own grave here."[569]

Imeda Kutashvili also stated that the Ossetians gave him very little water and almost no food, and beat him regularly with hammers on his hand as well as by placing a bucket on his head and hitting it. He also described beatings by Ossetian police using "anything they had on hand." "They beat us with chairs, belts, and ropes, and when the shovel broke, they used the handle," he said. "They beat me on the arms and on the soles of my feet with an iron rod. While they were beating me I tried to cover my head, and they broke my hand. Sometimes I lost consciousness and they would put water in my face to wake me up."[570] Davit Malachini stated that while in Ossetian police detention he witnessed police urinating on another soldier's face to wake him up in order to begin beating him again.[571]

The physical and psychological consequences of this treatment are described below.

At some point during the detention of Georgian POWs by Ossetian police, Russian journalists were allowed to film the Georgian soldiers and asked them their names, ages, and how they were being treated.[572] Some of this video was placed on the internet and included images of Malachini, Kutashvili, and Zirakishvili.[573]

Transfer to Russian custody and release

On August 17, Ossetian police transferred Malachini, Kutashvili, and Zirakishvili to Russian forces, who took them to a base. The Georgian soldiers were in very poor physical condition: Davit Malachini said, "By that time I couldn't really even move my arms. My feet dragged. My legs and arms were so swollen. I was trembling all over. I couldn't control it."[574] Kakha Zirakishvili said, "We couldn't even really stand or walk. We leaned on each other in order to move."[575]

The Russian forces questioned the three men and then placed them in a basement together with five or six other Georgian soldiers who had been detained separately. The Russian forces did not physically ill-treat the three. They allowed the Georgian soldiers to wash, shave, and rinse their uniforms and gave them food, water, and some basic medical treatment.[576]

Malachini, Zirakishvili, and Kutashvili, together with 10 others, were transferred to Georgian custody on August 19 in exchange for Russian POWs.

Consequences of ill-treatment and torture

All of the former POWs suffered serious medical complications following their detention and ill-treatment. Imeda Kutashvili said, "I don't sleep at night. I have nightmares. I wake up and think that this will happen to me again. I have problems walking, I am dizzy. My spine is damaged, my ribs are bruised, and my heels are split open."[577] He spent approximately one week in hospital following his release. When Human Rights Watch interviewed Kutashvili, he walked with a severe limp and had visible scars on his head.

Kakha Zirakishvili and Davit Malachini also had medical complications. Malachini stayed in hospital for approximately one week. He had a broken rib and damage and swelling to one lung. He also complained of pain in his ankles, back, sides, and chest, as well as from his severely burned finger.[578] Kakha Zirakishvili was still in hospital at the time of his interview with Human Rights Watch, more than three weeks following his release. He told Human Rights Watch,

Before this, I weighed 78 kilos. When they weighed me [in hospital after my release] I weighed only 52 kilos. I have a broken rib. I have a broken bone in my right hand and [two broken bones] in my fingers. I have a lot of bruising, internal bruising in my chest and abdomen. I have pain in my joints, where they beat me. My eardrum is broken. I will have surgery to repair it. I also have a lot of problems with my head now. I lose sense of reality, a sense of where I am. The doctors say there may be some serious head trauma.[579]

When Human Rights Watch interviewed Zaza Kavtiashvili on September 11, 2008, he had been in a Georgian hospital since he was exchanged. He could not walk, and doctors had told him that he will eventually need to receive an artificial knee replacement for the kneecap shattered when he was shot during the street fighting in Tskinvali on August 9. His arm, broken as a result of the beatings by Ossetian police, required an additional operation, having been improperly set during initial medical treatment. Kavtiashvili also had many bruises and several head wounds from the beatings.[580]