Late Georgian Billionaire’s Family Releases Statement
The family of the late Georgian businessman and billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili, who was found dead on February 2008 in his mansion in the UK, released a statement after the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia (POG) solved the murder plot of the man.
The family demands completion of the investigation in a timely manner and severe punishment of those, who ordered and executed the crime.
“The briefing at Prosecutor’s Office was a shock for the family. It is hard to imagine what the family feels when it hears the conversation about how Badri’s murder was plotted,” reads the statement.
“We demand the completion of the investigation in the shortest possible time and hope that all those who were planning to commit this crime, starting from the murderer and ending with the people who ordered this, will be fully held responsible,” the statement of wife of the tycoon Patarkatsishvili and her children reads.
On October 17, the POG stated at a special briefing that the former Head of the first service of the second division of the Tbilisi Main Division of the Constitutional Security Department, G.M., has been detained, while L.K., former deputy head of the second division, and R.Sh, head of the second service of the same division, were charged for plotting the murder.
As reported by the agency, the investigation obtained two recordings made on 4 and 5 February 2007 with the speakers plotting Patarkatsishvili’s murder.
The POG says the murder had been sanctioned by the former President Mikheil Saakashvili, since Patarkatsishvili was his opponent.
Prosecutor Koka Katsitadze said at the briefing that the recordings were seized during the search of one of the defendants’ house in 2016.
He underlined that the case concerns the plotting of the murder and not the actual murder.
Badri Patarkatsishvili was a Georgian businessman who also became extensively involved in politics. He contested the 2008 Georgian presidential election and came third with 7.1% of the votes. He was also one of the country's largest philanthropists.
By Thea Morrison
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Prosecutor’s Office Solves Patarkatsishvili’s Murder Plot