TBILISI, Georgia (AP) – Europe’s top human rights court held Russia responsible for a series of violations in Georgia’s breakaway regions after the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
Georgia hailed the European Court of Human Rights’ verdict as a major victory.
President Salome Zurabishvili described the decision as “historic”, noting that Georgia was “recognized as a victim of this war and is a great achievement for our country, our society, our history and our future”.
Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia also described the verdict as a milestone, saying that “the case against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights ended with Georgia’s victory.”
The August 2008 war broke out when Georgian troops unsuccessfully tried to regain control over Moscow-backed South Ossetia’s separatist province, and Russia sent troops that defeated the Georgian military in five days of combat.
After the war, Moscow established military bases in South Ossetia and in another separatist Georgian province, Abkhazia, and recognized them as independent states, while most of the world continued to regard them as part of Georgia.
In its case against Russia, Georgia accused it of violating the European Convention on Human Rights during and after the war, but the ECHR only accepted Georgian complaints related to the period after the fighting.
The Strasbourg-based court ruled that Russia exercised effective control over Georgia’s breakaway regions after hostilities and was responsible for mistreatment and acts of torture against Georgian prisoners of war, arbitrary arrests of Georgians and “inhuman and degrading treatment” of 160 Georgian civilian detainees, who were held in crowded confinement for more than two weeks in August 2008.
He also blamed Russia for preventing Georgians from ethnic forcibly displaced persons from returning to separatist regions after the conflict. The court ordered Moscow to conduct an investigation into human rights violations during hostilities and their consequences.
Georgia’s foreign minister, David Zalkaliani, hailed the ECHR’s decision as “an unprecedented international victory for the Georgian state”.
The Russian Ministry of Justice has expressed disagreement with some of the court’s findings blaming Russia for the incidents in South Ossetia and Abkhazia “despite the fact that the direct involvement of Russian troops has never been proven”.
At the same time, the ministry emphasized the ECHR’s decision that Georgian complaints related to the conflict period were inadmissible.
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Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.