The Supreme Court refuses to acquit the accused of raping a tourist girl in Abkhazia
Rape of a Russian tourist in Abkhazia
The high-profile case of the rape of a Russian tourist in Abkhazia in 2019 has returned to the agenda. Edgar Abukhba, who was found guilty in this case, is currently serving a term in a strict penal colony.
His lawyer tried to get his client acquitted or to replace the strict regime with a general one. The Supreme Court refused to justify, and left the issue of changing the regime to the Constitutional Court. Some consider this decision strange and believe that it could harm the tourism image of the republic.
Summer 2019
In 2019, this story made a lot of noise in Abkhazia. And although journalists were not allowed to attend court sessions, the press knew all the details of the case from various sources.
At the time of the crime, Edgar Abukhba was 17 years old. He knew the victim. On July 31, 2019, in the Chegem cafe on the Sukhum embankment, Edgar told the girl that he wanted to marry her, but at first he just wanted her. In every way he persuaded her to intimacy, and when she was refused, he added alcohol.
At some point the girl asked where the nearest public toilet was. Abukhba led her to a complex of a burned-out abandoned building, dragged her to one of the floors, where, once again having been refused, he began to beat her.
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According to the results of the examination, “as a result of deliberate criminal actions, the victim suffered: abrasions in the anus, traces of sexual intercourse in a perverted form, bruises on the upper inner squares of the left and right mammary glands.”
Even the Russian Ambassador to Abkhazia, Aleksey Dvinyanin, spoke about this case on television, complaining, among other things, that the legal proceedings were dragging on for a long time.
In February 2021, Abukhba was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony. A few months later the sentence was revised, replacing the general regime with a strict one.
Summer 2023
Now his lawyer, Lika Chakvetadze, has filed a supervisory appeal with the Supreme Court, asking that the verdict and the decision of the Cassation Board be canceled, and that her client be found not guilty on all counts.
According to the law, in order for the Presidium of the Supreme Court to consider the complaint, the decision on this must first be made by the judge to whom this complaint came. Judge Ekaterina Onishchenko refused to transfer the complaint, considering that there were no grounds for its consideration by the Presidium. However, the Chairman of the Supreme Court, Saida Butba, canceled this decision and, by her own decision, transferred the supervisory complaint to the Presidium.
At the meeting of the Presidium, in addition to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the lawyer of the victim Inga Gabilaya, employees of the Russian embassy, the mother of the victim and the lawyer of the convict, there was also a lawyer from the Office of the Ombudsman and journalists.
Abukhba’s defense in their complaint did not deny the fact of sexual intercourse, but insisted that it was voluntary. The prosecutor’s office and the lawyer of the victim, Inga Gabilaya, opposed the satisfaction of the complaint. The mother of the victim told the court that for several months her daughter was in a serious condition: she could only eat baby food, she could not go to the toilet. Also, according to her, the family of the convict offered them money for the victim to withdraw the application, but they refused.
Inga Gabilaya recalled that there are photographs of mutilations proving that there can be no question of any voluntary sexual intercourse. The girl survived three operations, her right eye fell down, which is still visually different from the left, her cheekbones were crushed. As noted by the lawyer, Abukhba was sure that he had killed the girl, which he told a friend by phone.
Unique solution
As a result, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Abkhazia suspended the proceedings in respect of the supervisory appeal.
At the time of the crime, Abukhba was 17 years old, but while the judicial investigation was ongoing, he had reached the age of majority. According to the Presidium of the Supreme Court, the norms of the Criminal Code of Abkhazia do not contain a direct indication of what punishment the offender should bear in such cases.
The Presidium decided to send a request to the Constitutional Court to verify the constitutionality of Article 39 of the Correctional Labor Code and Part 1 of Article 53 of the Criminal Code of Abkhazia.
According to Inga Gabilaya, it is difficult for her to comment on such a decision, since she is faced with such a decision for the first time in her practice:
“In fact, the Presidium left the deliberation room without a final decision. Abukhba’s defense in the complaint asked him to justify or change the calculation of the term for serving the sentence. That is, assign it not a strict mode, but a general one. The Presidium, it turns out, did not satisfy the request for acquittal, and shifted the decision on the procedure for calculating the calculation to the Constitutional Court.”
We were not able to get through to the Constitutional Court and find out how long they should respond to the request of the Presidium. In Abkhazian society, they believe that such a court decision before the tourist season may adversely affect the image of the republic.
Rape of a Russian tourist in Abkhazia
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