The Public Defender condemns the illegal detention of a citizen by law enforcement officers. At 5:42 am, February 23, law enforcement officers unreasonably and unlawfully arrested A.B., which is still in custody.

Despite a number of appeals concerning alleged unlawful detentions, it has always been difficult and often impossible to indentify violations committed by law enforcers against detainees. However, yesterday, at night, the Public Defender’s authorized representative monitored the search and detention of a person after a notification was received by the Public Defender’s Office. The monitoring revealed that law enforcers unprecedentedly intensively interfered with the human right to freedom without any grounds.

The motive for citizen A.B.’s arrest was the discovery of a cut Coca-Cola bottle with a cover, a cut Likani bottle with a cover and 6 pieces of syringes with covers and needles during the search of his house. Based on this, A.B. was arrested on the charge of illegal purchase and storage of drugs, which is punished by prison penalty up to six years.

It is noteworthy that the motive for the urgent search was the alleged illegal purchase and possession of a firearm. However, except for the items mentioned above, no firearms or any other illegal items could be found, according to the search record.

According to the arrest record, A.B.'s arrest was based on: 1. The person was caught while committing a crime or immediately after committing a crime; 2. The person or his clothing had obvious traces of the crime committed; 3. The person could escape.

None of the grounds existed for A.B.'s arrest, as far as even according to the search record, 1. He was not committing a crime when he was detained; 2. There were no obvious traces of a crime. The discovered bottles and syringes do not represent obvious traces of a crime, especially when: a) syringes and bottles were empty; b) no previous information supported the presumption that the person might have drugs; C) the motive of the search was to detect firearms, which was not based on a well-founded assumption either - only the police officer’s questioning record served as grounds for the search; 3. There was no ground for escape, as far as according to the arrest and search protocols, the search was conducted in a calm atmosphere, the person did not resist the police, which was also witnessed by the representative of the Public Defender's Office.

It should also be noted that A.B.'s detention would be possible on the basis of a court warrant in case of a discovery of traces of drugs after examination of bottles and syringes.

It should be emphasized that according to the Constitutional Court decisions of 2015 and 2017, detention of a person for purchase and possession of marijuana for personal use was declared unconstitutional. Accordingly, even if the bottles were used for this purpose in the past, A.B.'s detention clearly violates the Constitution and represents a gross violation of the human freedom and therefore, the person must be immediately released.