Young lawyers call Georgian MIA to re-investigate Niko Kvintradze's death

The Association of Young Lawyers of Georgia (AYLG) has questioned, after seeing the examination results, the official version of the death of Niko Kvintradze, who died, as the police assert, from an electric shock, when he was hiding on the roof of a house during the dispersal of the May 26 demonstration. According to the AYLG, Kvintradze was detained by policemen during the dispersal.

Under the official version of the MIA, Niko Kvintradze and Suliko Asatiani hid from police on the roof and died from electric shock after touching bare wires.

"The video made during the dispersal of the rally shows detention of a person, who was recognized by the opposition and human rights activists as Niko Kvintradze. Thus, it turns out that the police arrested the man, killed him and then placed the body onto the roof," notes the AYLG.

However, according to sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the film captured another man - Giorgi Baramidze, a resident of the Karelia District of Georgia, who is currently alive.

Activists of the AYLG decided to examine whether Kvintradze was captured by the video and turned for expertise to the private British company DABS Fingerprints/Forensics, which is a member of the British Association for Human Identification and the British Institute of photography.

Kenneth Lindj, an expert for the DABS and consultant in forensic comparison of facial images and criminal photography, has explained that the morphological comparison between the photograph in Kvintradze's passport, his posthumous photo and the video image of the person, detained and thrown to the earth (designated in the report as "image No. 4), showed no significant differences and contained eight points of similarities.

The posthumous photo shows a visible and characteristic bump, left by a blow. The same bump is visible in the photo of the demonstrator, detained by the police.

According to the expert's conclusion, there is good reason to believe that all the three images had captured one and same person.

Based on the report of the DABS, the AYLG has concluded that most probably at the time of rally dispersal, Niko Kvintradze was under police control.