Head of the prison No.2 in Kutaisi and three other officials from the same penitentiary facility have been arrested facing charges on “inhuman treatment, torture and rape” of inmates, the chief prosecutor’s office said on September 27.

With this recent arrests, number of penitentiary officials arrested after the prison abuse scandal broke on September 18 increased to sixteen, according to the prosecutor’s office.

Giorgi Tugushi, new minister for penitentiary system, said on September 25 that evidence were emerging of cases of prisoners’ torture and inhuman treatment, other than what has already been revealed in the Gldani prison No.8. He also announced about the plans to establish “an independent investigative team”, which would have “a broad mandate” to probe into “all the cases” of human rights violations that were taking place in the penitentiary system “in recent years”.