The Military Police of the Georgian Ministry of Defense announced on March 15 that it has detained two conscripts serving at the Krtsanisi Training Center on charges of beating and extorting money from fellow conscripts.
The detentions came four days after Rustavi 2 TV aired a story about 19-year-old Kazim Gakhramanov, who claimed he was beaten by two other conscripts after he refused to disclose his salary card details.
Gakhramanov said beatings were common practice in the training center, and that the recent incident was witnessed by one of the supervising officers.
Irakli Bazerashvili, a defense ministry representative, told reporters on March 12 that the officer identified by Gakhramanov denied his involvement in the incident.
Defense Minister Levan Izoria commented on the detentions on March 15, stressing the incident took place between conscripts, and that officers were not involved.
“Two conscripts exerted physical pressure on other conscripts, and tried to get their salary cards… As soon as we obtained this information, we reacted immediately – we identified and detained the suspects,” he said.
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