Ten years have passed since the murder of 30-year-old Georgian citizen Giga Otkhozoria near the boundary line with occupied Abkhazia.
To mark the anniversary, Zviad Zviadadze, Head of the Department of Reconciliation and Engagement Policy at the Office of the State Minister of Georgia, visited Zugdidi alongside Municipal Mayor David Kodua. They visited Otkhozoria’s grave.
Zviadadze expressed his condolences to the family of the deceased and laid flowers at his grave.
As a reminder, Giga Otkhozoria, a Georgian citizen, lived in territory controlled by Tbilisi but was killed by Russian occupation forces at the so-called Khurcha-Nabakevi checkpoint on May 19, 2016.
Surveillance cameras captured the moment Otkhozoria fell to the ground after a “control shot” (a finishing shot), which followed several initial shots.
The Kutaisi Court of Appeals increased the sentence previously handed down in absentia (12 years of imprisonment) by the Zugdidi Court against the so-called Abkhazian “border guard,” sentencing him to 14 years in prison.
At the request of Georgian authorities, Interpol issued a Red Notice for Rashid Kandji-Ogly. In Sukhumi, the case against Kandji-Ogly was closed on April 21, 2017. Previously, they had claimed the perpetrator was under house arrest.
In 2023, the Otkhozoria family won a legal battle against Russia in the Strasbourg court. According to the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Russia—having violated Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to life) in the case of Otkhozoria’s murder—must pay the victim’s family 130,000 euros in compensation.
Otkhozoria v. Russia: 7 Years Later, ECHR Finds Russia Guilty of Murdering Georgian Citizen