Russia ordered to pay Georgia $11.5m over deportations

 
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Thursday ordered Russia to pay Georgia $11.5 million over mass expulsions of Georgian citizens in 2006 and 2007.
 
Georgia had alleged that more than 4,600 of its citizens were deported or ordered to leave Russia over several months in response to the arrest in Georgia of four Russian officers accused of spying.
 
In a 2014 judgement, the Strasbourg-based court declared that the expulsions violated a ban on the collective expulsion of foreigners.
 
Russian authorities had also violated the right to freedom and a ban on degrading treatment of the Georgians who were detained for deportation, the court said at the time.
 
In Thursday’s ruling on compensation, the court said Georgia should give 2,000 euros each from the award to citizens who were expelled from Russia.
 
Those who also suffered detention and mistreatment should get between 10,000 and 15,000 euros each, the ECHR said.
 
Russia and Georgia, which have long had tense relations, fought a five-day war in 2008 over two breakaway Georgian republics that Russia has recognised as autonomous states.
 
In 2015 Russia passed a law saying it could overrule ECHR decisions if it deemed them unconstitutional.
 
The ECHR is part of the Council of Europe, a rights-focused body which almost all European states, including Russia and Georgia, have joined.