Court Acquits Former Marneuli Mayor

On February 12, Rustavi City Court acquitted former Marneuli Mayor, Temur Abazov, who was charged with inhuman and degrading treatment of a local resident.

Last February, Abazov filed a resignation to the Marneuli City Council, saying that he could not hold the same position with “such charges” leveled against him. In November 2019, Abazov was appointed as Vice President of the Georgian Powerlifting Federation.

The Prosecutor’s Office told Civil.ge today that it will challenge the ruling in the upper instance court.

Temur Abazov was arrested on charges of inhuman and degrading treatment of a local resident on June 13, 2018. Later the court sentenced him to a period pretrial detention. In December 2018, he was released after paying a GEL 10,000 bail.

The arrest came a day after Tbilisi-based Studio Monitor published a story showing a video of a Marneuli resident Elchin Alakhvediev compelled to apologize for verbally insulting the ruling Georgian Dream party founder and leader Bidzina Ivanishvili and Marneuli Mayor Temur Abazov at one of the teen murder case rallies in Tbilisi.

Another video, obtained by Studio Monitor, showed Alakhvediev forced into humiliation of wiping his face with what seemed to be his urine.

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