The Tbilisi City Court replaced the pre-trial detention of Georgian teacher and activist Nino Datashvili with bail on Wednesday. This decision came only after her spinal condition sharply deteriorated.
Datashvili was remanded to a pre-trial detention facility in June after she was accused of assaulting a court bailiff during the trial of eight anti-government protesters, a crime punishable by a fine or imprisonment from four to seven years.
The Prosecutor General’s Office requested that Datashvili’s preventive measure be eased during the Wednesday trial, citing her health condition as the reason.
Datashvili herself joined the hearing online, but for her family members and friends present in the courtroom, her suffering was evident.
RFE/RL described the scene in the courtroom as follows:
‘ “It feels like my back is breaking!” — Nino Datashvili’s voice is heard, as she cries.
“Hold on a little longer, Nino. The Prosecutor General’s Office has requested your bail. Just a little longer, stay strong”, her lawyer Tamar Gabodze told her.
“Please, could someone bring me a chair so I can rest my legs? I can’t stay still otherwise; I’ve had an injection”, Datashvili’s voice is heard in the courtroom.
The prisoner groans; it is hard for those present [in the courtroom] to listen. The sound of sobbing is heard in the courtroom’.
According to RFE/RL journalist Nino Tarkhnishvili, who attended the hearing, the bail announcement was met in the courtroom with ‘neither ovation nor applause, as the shock felt by those present after hearing Nino’s voice was so overwhelming’.
Datashvili left prison a few hours after her court hearing. The bail set at ₾5,000 ($1,800) was raised within 10 minutes, according to activists.
Datashvili’s lawyers had raised the alarm about her deteriorating health once again the day prior, after visiting their client.
One of them, Eliso Rukhadze, said she was ‘shocked’ by what she saw and urged state institutions — including the Prosecutor General’s Office — to take action to prevent a ‘fatal outcome’.
The Tbilisi-based organisation Partnership for Human Rights (PHR), whose chair Tamar Gabodze is one of Datashvili’s lawyers, stated that the activist requires two surgeries, including one on her cervical spine.
According to the organisation, while Datashvili has been receiving medical care in prison, her condition not only failed to improve but became ‘critically severe’, demonstrating that treatment in prison was ineffective.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Datashvili thanked her lawyers, as well as the prison administration and the doctors, who, according to her, did everything they could for her health.
‘But it didn’t help, and now I need two surgeries’, she added.
No gratitude for the Prosecutor General’s Office
Datashvili was arrested on 20 June following an incident at the Tbilisi City Court, where she had gone to attend the trial of those detained during ongoing anti-government protests.
After bailiffs barred spectators from entering the courtroom, Datashvili asked on what legal basis they were doing so. Footage published by local media shows Datashvili then being pushed out of the building by several men.
Lawyer Gabodze told local media in the past that Datashvili was innocent and had not attacked anyone; rather, she herself became a victim of violence by the court bailiffs.
Her health condition has long been known to both the Prosecutor General’s Office and the court. According to the defence, from the very beginning of the case, they had submitted information about Datashvili’s spinal problems — existent before the imprisonment — and explained that her pre-trial detention was unjustified.
PHR stated that two months after her detention, Datashvili began experiencing pain in both her spine and limbs, which prevented her from attending her court hearings on 8 and 17 September.
However, the Prosecutor General’s Office repeatedly requested that Datashvili remain in pre-trial detention, a request that was granted by the court each time, often citing a risk of reoffending as the reason.
On one occasion, in August, because the medical documents presented by her lawyers described her spinal condition as accompanied by emotional liability, the prosecution requested Datashvili’s psychiatric examination — a move widely criticised as an attempt to exploit psychiatry and stigmatise the activist. Prosecutor Medea Tsiramua, who is leading the case, rejected this assertion.
‘Nino is suffering today, and I cannot express my gratitude toward the Prosecutor’s Office’, Gabodze said on Wednesday, noting that the prosecutors did not request bail until Datashvili had reached an extreme condition.
‘The fact that she now needs two surgeries is your responsibility’, she told the prosecutors, as quoted by Netgazeti.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
