Three law enforcement officers have been detained in connection with the death of 23-year-old Temur Khaduri. According to Ledi Tukvadze, the attorney representing the victim’s family, the officers are accused of giving false testimony to investigators and obstructing the collection of evidence. Furthermore, the charges may be upgraded to include abuse of official authority.
The detainees include former deputy heads of the Terjola and Tkibuli police departments, as well as an investigator. According to the attorney, only one of the three suspects is currently an active-duty police officer.
A central episode of the case involves the events preceding Temur Khaduri’s death—specifically, a police pursuit operation. According to the lawyer, witness testimony and audio-video recordings in the case files confirm that police pursued Khaduri, and that these three law enforcement officers were the last to see him before he went missing. Several days later, Temur Khaduri was found dead.
“Why did the police conceal the pursuit operation and refuse to cooperate with the investigation? That was the victim’s side’s primary question. Because of their false testimony, determining the true cause of death proved impossible for us,” Ledi Tukvadze said in an interview with Netgazeti.
Regarding the victim’s family, their key demand is that the detained officers cooperate with the investigation. The family insists on uncovering what actually happened, what caused the young man’s death, and why the officers found it necessary to give false testimony.
Temo Khaduri’s body was discovered on August 28, 2024, in the Tsachkhura riverbed. Prior to that, he had been reported missing, and his relatives had been searching for him.
Temo left Tbilisi for Kutaisi on August 25, 2024. He got off a minibus in Terjola, near the village of Simoneti, and continued on foot. It was from Simoneti that he called his family to say he would be home soon. After that, all trace of him was lost until local residents discovered his body in the riverbed three days later.
Earlier, on TV Pirveli, the family’s lawyer disclosed the findings of the Samkharauli National Forensics Bureau, which documented antemortem blunt-force trauma to Khaduri’s face inflicted just minutes before his death. According to his mother, her son also sustained injuries to the back of his head.
Relatives link these injuries to an altercation Temo had with police officers shortly before his death.
According to the family, case records indicate that Temo Khaduri damaged the car of Tkibuli Deputy Police Chief Lasha Labuchidze before fleeing the scene. The police maintain that they failed to locate the young man and called off the chase. However, the family believes that the officers caught up with him, beat him to death, and threw his body into the river. Relatives also allege that the officers pursued Khaduri and fired warning shots into the air.
Temo Khaduri was 23 years old. He was a student at Akaki Tsereteli State University and an actor with the Libertas theater troupe. Khaduri also served his church as an altar server.