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Civilians describe beatings in prison
Released Georgian detainees say they experienced miserable conditions in South Ossetia jail.
- By Jonathan Finer, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post
- Published: 23:28 August 24, 2008
Rustavi Georgian civilians captured and recently freed by Russian and South Ossetian forces yesterday described beatings, forced labour and miserable living conditions in prison.
Georgian officials said that 79 Georgian civilians have been released over the past few days but that at least 75 civilians, almost all of them young men, remain in captivity in Tskhinvali, capital of the separatist territory of South Ossetia. The former prisoners, a half-dozen of whom were interviewed at a school serving as temporary housing in this industrial city, said they were seized from their homes or as they fled advancing Russian and South Ossetian forces. Some said they were held for as many as 12 days at a jail in Tskhinvali.
The detainees, many of them elderly fruit farmers from villages along Georgia's northern border, said male inmates were forced to clean streets and bury the war dead, and occasionally endured beatings that left them with bruises and welts. More than 100 men and women were packed into a cell with a single toilet, they said.
Lined up against wall
"I thought they would kill us. I was very much afraid," said Manuna Gogidze, 48.
Gogidze said she and 15 others were forced out of her neighbour's cellar on August 8 and lined up against a wall. A South Ossetian militiaman was pointing a cocked rifle at them when another fighter intervened, she said. They were then loaded into a truck and taken north.
The inmates' stories could not be independently verified, though people interviewed separately gave consistent accounts. South Ossetian and Russian officials have denied abusing Georgian detainees and said they are treated "appropriately".
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