The founders and leaders of Strong Georgia and Lelo, Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze, have been taken into custody.
The arrest took place in the party office, where, at the time, their supporters, representatives of other opposition forces, as well as the fifth president of Georgia, Salome Zurabishvili, were present.
Earlier, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced opposition politicians to prison terms for failing to appear at a meeting of the parliamentary investigative commission. According to the court’s decision, Khazaradze and Japaridze will spend eight months in prison.
This morning, Zurab Japaridze, leader of the Coalition for Change and the Girchi–More Freedom party, was sentenced to seven months in prison. He is already in custody.
The official goal of the commission, headed by Tea Tsulukiani, is to investigate crimes committed during the previous government’s period of rule. However, its mandate was extended to events that occurred after 2012. In particular, the commission is considering the issue of former Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia’s responsibility for the installation of a police post in the village of Chorchana in 2019.
Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze were summoned to a meeting of the parliamentary commission to consider the case of pressure on business during the National Movement’s ruling period. In particular, the head of Magnati LLC, Dzhemal Leonidze, claims that with the participation of TBC Bank, founded by Khazaradze and Japaridze, his business was illegally taken away from him.
Эхо Кавказа
