Head of the Special Investigation Service, Koka Katsitadze delivered a welcome speech at the third Steering Committee Meeting of the Council of Europe project Human Rights Compliant Policing in Georgia

Head of the Special Investigation Service, Koka Katsitadze delivered a welcome speech at the third Steering Committee Meeting of the Council of Europe project Human Rights Compliant Policing in Georgia

Koka Katsitadze thanked the Council of Europe office in Georgia for the support and spoke in detail about the important projects implemented with the active involvement of the CoE.

The event was chaired by Stefan Sirbu, Deputy Head of the Council of Europe Office in Georgia.

In his speech, Koka Katsitadze focused on the challenges faced by the Service due to the increased mandate from March 2022 and noted that the Service was able to deal with these challenges effectively with the support of the Council of Europe office and HRCPG Project.

The Head of the Special Investigation Service reviewed in detail the projects implemented in 2022 with the support of CoE.  In particular, the creation of additional guarantees for the protection of the rights of victims, the implementation of special protection programs and the activities implemented in terms of raising awareness.

According to him, all citizens, regardless of status, were given the opportunity to access case materialsand in this way, the Service directly complies with the recommendation of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. This is an unprecedented case of transparent investigation.

The conversation focused on such an important project as the use of special protection measures supported by the European Council. The investigative body offers every victim of ill-treatment to be included in the special protection program in case of any danger.

Both projects were examined with the involvement of an international expert from the Council of Europe and received a positive assessment in a number of components.

The Head of the Special Investigation Service drew attention to the activities carried out in the direction of raising awareness and explained that this is one of the main challenges. The Service will continue to work in this direction and a number of events are planned in the coming years.

Koka Katsitadze emphasized the memorandum, which was signed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the General Prosecutor's Office, the Ministry of Justice and the State Security Service, and which aims to create a special council for the prevention of official crimes with the support of the Council of Europe.

At the meeting, the events planned for this year with the support of the European Council were also mentioned, which aim to take effective steps against ill-treatment and institutional strengthening of the service.

Koka Katsitadze thanked the representatives of the Council of Europe office in Georgia for their work and expressed readiness for future close cooperation.

Natia Songhulashvili -Deputy Head of the Special Investigation Service, Donche Bishkovski - Program Manager and Head of the 2nd Department of Council of Europe, Mykhailo Iskra - Project Manager of CoE, Eter Kamarauli - Senior Project Officer of Project HRCPG, representatives of SIS, MIA, and Office of the Public Defender attended the Steering Committee Meeting.