FORMER TOP OFFICIALS ARRESTED IN GEORGIA
On November 9, Tbilisi’s City Court ruled to release the Chief of the Joint Staff of Georgia’s armed forces Giorgi Kalandadze and the commander of the 4th army brigade Zurab Shamatava on a GEL 20,000 bail each. However, President Mikheil Saakashvili’s long-time ally and once influential government member Bachana Akhalaia was placed in pre-trial detention.
Former Defense and Interior Minister Akhalaia resigned from the post of Interior Minister prior to the October 1 parliamentary polls and left Georgia shortly after the Saakashvili’s United National Movement lost the elections. The new ruling party reportedly blamed him for transgressions during his service as chief of the prison system and later as defense minister. Despite a continuous stream of allegations, the former minister suddenly returned back to Georgia on November 5 and said he was ready to confront the “absurd” and “idiotic” assertions the new authorities leveled against him.
On the same day, an investigation under paragraph 3 of article 333 of the criminal code, which involves “exceeding official powers” resulting in the “insult of a victim’s dignity” and envisages imprisonment for five to eight years, was launched. On November 7, law enforcement arrested Akhalaia along with Brigadier-General Kalandadze – a hero of the 2008 August war who was appointed by Saakashvili as Chief of the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces shortly after the parliamentary elections – and Zurab Shamatava, commander of 4th brigade of the Georgian armed forces.
The prosecutor’s office released written witness statements of five soldiers that buttress the arrest of Akhalaia and the senior army commanders. The former servicemen of the 4th infantry brigade, whose identities have been kept secret, described in their statements how Akhalaia, Kalandadze and Shamatava beat and verbally insulted them at the Ministry of Defense and in the military base in Vaziani in 2011, while Akhalaia occupied the post of Defense Minister.
Later, the prosecutor’s office released another testimony by an unidentified victim who told that he was verbally abused and beaten by Akhalaia and Kalandadze in a restaurant and then taken to a house located in a Tbilisi suburb, on Akhalaia’s orders, where he was held for a while. The case carries separate charges against Akhalaia including “illegal deprivation of freedom” regulated by the second and third paragraphs of article 143 of the criminal code which foresees imprisonment between seven and ten years. The detainees’ lawyers reported that all three in arrest denied the charges against them.
The UNM termed the legal action a “launch of a campaign of political persecution” against previous administration representatives. The incrimination of Kalandadze, the UNM claims, was dictated by incumbent Defense Minister Irakli Alasania’s desire to appoint his associate Vakhtang Kapanadze to the post of Chief of the Joint Staff. As the appointment of the army chief is within the President’s authority, Alasania started consultations with the President on the issue on October 31. However, Kapanadze was only allowed to take the post of Deputy Chief, implying that the consultations failed.
Given the sequence of events, the Secretary of the National Security Council, Giga Bokeria, suggested that Kalandadze’s arrest was a means to vacate the post for Alasania’s confidant Kapanadze. “These steps have already struck a blow to Georgia … especially in the context of the upcoming NATO [foreign ministerial] summit [in December],” Bokeria said.
In stark contrast to these statements, Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili said that “If illegal acts have been committed – and I think they have been, law enforcement agencies will continue restoring justice in the country.”
On November 10, Saakashvili welcomed Kalandadze at the president’s palace and charged him to resume his duties. “My advice is to leave it all behind. Get back to the general headquarters and continue your faithful service of the homeland, as you served in past years,” the President told Kalandadze.
Meanwhile, the NATO Military Committee postponed its visit to Georgia, initially planned to take place in November. “It is natural that when an event of such scale is being postponed it is related to the situation existing in the country,” Georgia’s Ambassador to NATO, Grigol Mgaloblishvili said. Nevertheless, Alexi Petriashvili, Georgia’s new State Minister on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, assured that a new date for the NATO delegation’s visit to Georgia would be known shortly.
Importantly, Georgia’s President and Prime Minister are both to visit Brussels on November 12-14 and hold meetings with NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The two politicians will thus have a chance to present their own versions of the events taking place in the country.
