On April 13, 2017, the Public Defender of Georgia addressed the Chief Prosecutor of Georgia with a proposal to launch an investigation into alleged ill-treatment of defendant M.T. by police officers.

On April 12, 2017, the representative of the Public Defender of Georgia visited defendant M.T. in the penitentiary department No 8. According to M.T., on March 15, 2017, he and his friends were in a restaurant, where he was detained by strangers. M.T. alleges the strangers were not in police uniforms, did now show any official order, did not explain the grounds of detention and only after they forced him to get in a car, they said they were police officers.

According to the detainee, he was dragged from the restaurant to the police car for about 10-15 meters; before putting him in the car, one of the persons grabbed him in the neck, while others started to beat him. He alleges he showed his pockets to them and shouted that he had nothing in them, though the police officers did not conduct his personal search and only superficially checked him (put hands on the pockets from the outside). The detainee was taken to the Tbilisi Police Department, where he was forced to take off his clothes, which were taken to another room for a certain period of time. According to M.T., he could not see what they did with his clothes.

According to the detention protocol and the visual examination protocol, drawn up in the penitentiary establishment No 8, the defendant had injuries, which according to him, were inflicted during the detention.

The Public Defender of Georgia believes that an investigation into the alleged ill-treatment of M.T. should be immediately launched and carried out by the Prosecutor's Office of Georgia; the investigation should be conducted effectively and all necessary investigative actions should be carried out.

As a result of the Public Defender’s recommendations, an investigation was launched by the investigative department of the Prosecutor’s Office of Tbilisi.