issued by the Registrar of the Court  
no. 133  
15.02.2011  
Official explanation that a Georgian inmate committed suicide,  
despite allegations that he had been racketeered in prison,  
was not convincing  
In today’s Chamber judgment in the case Tsintsabadze v. Georgia (application  
no. 35403/06), which is not final1, the European Court of Human Rights held,  
unanimously, that there had been:  
A violation of Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.  
The case concerned Ms Tsintsabadze’s allegation that her son, who had problems with  
prison makurebelis (influential prisoners, either unlawfully favoured or tacitly tolerated  
by the prison administration), was killed and that his murder was made to look like a  
suicide.  
Principal facts  
The applicant, Svetlana Tsintsabadze, is a Georgian national who was born in 1955 and  
lives in Batumi (Georgia).  
Her son, Zurab Tsintsabadze, born in 1975, was discovered hanged in Khoni Prison  
(Georgia) storeroom on 30 September 2005. He was serving a three-year sentence for  
having resisted police officers who had been called to his former wife’s (called Maka)  
home on account of his violent behaviour.  
A. L-iani, the prisoner governor, immediately informed the Ministry of Justice’s  
investigation department and investigative measures were taken, including an inspection  
of the scene of the death, an autopsy and examination of witnesses.  
Notably, on 1 October 2005 an investigator from the Ministry was sent to examine the  
scene of the hanging: two deputy governors of the prison took part in the process,  
providing the investigator with the rope Mr Tsintsabadze had used to hang himself and  
his shoes. Both were put under seal, along with a packet of cigarettes, a lighter and a  
painkiller found by one of the governors in Mr Tsintsabadze’s pockets. Two wooden  
chairs found beneath Mr Tsintsabadze were also handed over to the investigator; they  
were not placed under seal.  
From 1 to 3 October 2005 the National Forensics Bureau, under the supervision of the  
Ministry of Justice, carried out an autopsy. It concluded that the cause of death was  
mechanical asphyxia by hanging; no lesions, apart from a strangulation mark on the  
throat, were found. At the request of Ms Tsintsabadze and her former husband, an  
1 Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month  
period following its delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the  
Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further  
examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If the referral  
request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.  
Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for  
supervision of its execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here:  
www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution  
 
independent autopsy was also subsequently carried out which confirmed the first  
autopsy’s conclusion concerning the cause of death. It further noted, however, a lesion  
caused by a blunt object near the strangulation mark on their son’s neck.  
Numerous witnesses – the prison governor, a warder, the prison doctor and various  
inmates – stated that Mr Tsintsabadze had made previous suicide attempts (with visible  
scarring on his body where he had slashed himself) and that he was hurt by the fact that  
his parents and wife did not visit him in prison. The governor in particular cited the  
reasons for Mr Tsintsabadze’s suicide as being his disappointment at his wife going to  
Turkey. They all further claimed that, calm and reserved, Mr Tsintsabadze was not in  
conflict with anyone in prison.  
Ms Tsintsabadze consistently denied before the domestic authorities that her son had  
committed suicide, claiming that he might have been killed and that the Khoni prison  
authorities had covered the murder up. From the very beginning of the investigation she  
informed the investigator that her son had been anxious about payments he was being  
forced to make to the prison’s “kitty”, an obligatory “tax” for all prisoners racekteered by  
the makurebelis in collusion with the prison adminstration. She alleged that part of the  
“kitty” was paid to the administration in return for certain favours (permission to play  
cards, leave a cell or receive a prohibited item such as a mobile phone). She stated that  
her son had frequently called her and relatives asking for money in order to meet those  
payments.  
In November 2005 the criminal proceedings brought against a person or persons  
unknown for having driven Zurab Tsintsabadze to commit suicide were dismissed by the  
prosecuting authorities for lack of evidence. They referred in particular to a suicide note  
dated 28 October 2005, discovered on 8 November 2005 by a cleaner in the morgue,  
which proved that Mr Tsintsabadze had taken his own life to show his love for a woman  
called Nino, who apparently left him when he most needed her. Ms Tsintsabadze’s appeal  
was dismissed in January 2006 on the same grounds. In reply to her complaint that no  
forensic handwriting examination had been carried out on the supposed suicide note, the  
Court of Appeal – without further detail – stated that it had been compared with and  
found to be similar to other samples of her son’s handwriting.  
In December 2005 Ms Tsintsabadze’s former husband lodged a criminal complaint  
against inmate X, who, he alleged, had been trying to extort money from him owed by  
his dead son to the Khoni Prison “kitty”. The investigation was entrusted to the same  
investigators as those of the suicide inquiry. During those proceedings, X, who in the  
meantime, had been transferred to another prison, also expressed doubts about the  
suicide theory.  
In particular, he gave a detailed account of how two makurebelis of the prison,  
Z.L.-iani and V.Th.-shvili, had harassed and beaten Mr Tsintsabadze after his failure to  
repay money he had borrowed from the “kitty” to buy a mobile telephone. He also  
described how on 30 September 2005 he had witnessed Mr Tsintsabadze first being  
summoned by those two makurebelis for a talk, and then, a few minutes later, his  
unconscious body being dragged by them to the storeroom.  
Another witness, also an inmate at Khoni Prison at the time, subsequently confirmed X’s  
statement about Mr Tsintsabadze being harassed by the makurebelis over a debt and  
that this could have led to his death. He further stated that the crime had been carefully  
covered up by A.L-iani, the prison governor, who was a relative of Z.L-iani, one of the  
makurebelis. In fear for his life, he confirmed this information orally, refusing to make a  
written statement.  
In April 2006 Z.L.-iani and V.Th.-shvili were questioned by the Ministry’s investigation  
department as witnesses in the criminal proceedings against X. They denied that they  
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were makurebelis or that racketeering occurred in Khoni prison, explaining that their  
prison, reserved for former law-enforcement officers, tolerated no such criminal practices  
as a common “kitty”.  
In August 2006 the prosecuting authorities dismissed the case as it considered that  
there were no grounds for bringing a public prosection. They found in particular that X  
had not said anything before about the alleged murder and that he had clearly invented  
it to defend himself against the extortion charges.  
Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court  
Relying on Articles 2 (right to life), 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment)  
and 13 (right to an effective remedy), Ms Tsintsabadze alleged that her son had been  
killed and his murder been made to look like a suicide. She also alleged that the  
authorities’ investigation into her son’s death had been inadequate.  
The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 15 August  
2006.  
Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven, composed as follows:  
Françoise Tulkens (Belgium), President,  
Danutė Jočienė (Lithuania),  
Dragoljub Popović (Serbia),  
András Sajó (Hungary),  
Nona Tsotsoria (Georgia),  
Kristina Pardalos (San Marino),  
Guido Raimondi (Italy), Judges,  
and also Françoise Elens-Passos, Deputy Section Registrar.  
Decision of the Court  
Article 2  
First, the Court noted that the investigators of Zurab Tsintsabadze’s death and the Zhoni  
Prison staff – necessarily implicated in the incident – were both under the direct  
supervision of the Ministry of Justice and that that raised legitimate doubts as to the  
independence of the investigation. Those doubts were substantiated by the manner in  
which the investigation had actually been carried out.  
Indeed, there were a number of procedural shortcomings which left many obvious  
questions about the death unanswered. Surprisingly, the scene of the hanging was not  
sealed off and prison staff had removed such important pieces of evidence as the rope  
and chairs allegedly used for the suicide, taken off the deceased’s shoes and gone  
through his pockets. Inexplicably, the chairs had not been sealed off – unlike the other  
objects discovered – and no fingerprints had been taken from them. Nor had fingerprints  
been taken from the storeroom door, lock or padlock to see if they compared with  
Mr Tsintsabadze’s. The prison security guard on duty who would have been monitoring  
the storeroom that night had not been identified or questioned. Furthermore, there was  
an obvious inconsistency between the two autopsy reports – with the second report  
noting another lesion caused by a blunt object – which had never been explained or even  
investigated. Lastly, the credibility of the suicide note did not hold up to even the  
slightest criticism. Dated after the death, it had not been addressed to his former wife,  
Maka, but a certain Nino. Even assuming that he had mistaken the date (as suggested  
by the authorities), it would be incongruous to think that he had also forgotten the name  
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of his wife for whom he had supposedly committed suicide. Nor had it been explained  
how it could have been possible for the letter to have remained unnoticed in the morgue  
for more than a month, especially when the pockets of the deceased had already been  
examined by prison staff immediately upon discovering the body and and only three  
objects had been discovered. Moreover, the authorities had never provided any forensic  
handwriting or fingerprint expert report on the letter.  
The Court therefore concluded that the official version of a suicide simply did not hold.  
What is more, the authorities refused to explore the possibility of homicide, which was at  
least as plausible as the official suicide explanation, contrary to their obligation to follow  
all credible lines of inquiry.  
Notably, X’s statements, although made three months after the termination of the  
investigation, had contained numerous serious and credible allegations. His silence  
before that could be explained by the fact that he had felt intimidated. The Court was  
aware of the well-known illicit practices prevailing in Georgian prisons at the time and of  
the fear amongst ordinary prisoners of either mafia bosses or the prison administration.  
Indeed, this could account for the other inmate, who confirmed X’s version of events,  
refusing to make a written statement. Instead of launching a fresh inquiry given this new  
and important information, the authorities confined their further investigation to a brief  
interview with Z.L.-iani and V.Th.-shvili, simply accepting their denials, even though they  
should have been treated as the principle suspects. The authorities never sought to  
undertake any further investigative measures to prove or disprove X’s allegations such  
as, for example, verifying the allegation that the prison governor, A. L-iani, was related  
to one of the suspects (Z.L.-iani) and the possibility of collusion between the two.  
In conclusion, the Court found that the investigation into the death of Ms Tsintsabadze’s  
son had not been independent, objective or effective. Nor did the State provide a  
satisfactory and convincing explanation as regards the death, which had occurred in  
suspicious circumstances in prison. Georgia could thus be held directly responsible for  
the loss of her son’s life, in violation of Article 2.  
Other articles  
Given the comprehensive findings above, the Court considered that it was not necessary  
to examine separately Ms Tsintsabadze’s complaints under Articles 3 and 13.  
Article 41 (just satisfaction)  
The Court held that Georgia was to pay the applicant 15,000 euros (EUR) in respect of  
non-pecuniary damage, EUR 4,047 for costs and expenses.  
The judgment is available only in English.  
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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of  
Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European  
Convention on Human Rights.  
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