Majority MP Says President Does Not Want to Avoid Political Tension

Mamuka Mdinaradze, Georgian Dream (GD) ruling party MP, says that President Giorgi Margvelashvili does not want to avoid political tension regarding the Girgvliani Case, in which ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili was found guilty of abuse of power.

Mdinaradze says the current president is trying to help Saakashvili “get away with the crimes, committed by him during his presidency.”

"When two Presidents - former and active - speak in one voice, the society is to decide whether this is a coincidence or a political aim,” he stated.

As for the tension between the ruling party and the Presidential Administration, Mdinaradze said it is the aim of Margvelashvili and his administration.

"Throughout the entire last year, they were trying to turn the arguments into a political confrontation… We are constructive and we will try to be in the future too. This is our political will, but President Margvelashvili does not allow us to avoid political confrontation,” the MP added.

Earlier this month, Tbilisi City Court found Saakashvili guilty of abuse of power in the Alexander (Sandro) Girgvliani murder case, committed in January 2006.

The judge announced that Saakashvili had been sentenced to 3 years in jail in absentia, as he is now in Kyiv, Ukraine.

The verdict reads that Mikheil Saakashvili pardoned Girgvliani’s murderers, adding he abused his official powers and violated the law.

Saakashvili and his lawyer say the case is politically motivated and the verdict is a violation of the Georgian Constitution.

Now President Giorgi Margvelashvili stated the President himself is the only person authorized to grant pardons, adding it was unfair to find Saakashvili guilty in this field.

“It is alarming that Prosecutor’s Office used Constitution’s article of pardoning for the bases of persecution,” President Margvelashvili said.

The Prosecutor’s Office (POG) claims that on January 27, 2006, at Cafe Shardin in Tbilisi, Sandro Girgvliani had a verbal argument with Tamar Merabishvili, the wife of then Interior Minister Ivane Merabishvili, and Tatia Maisuradze, sitting at the table with David Akhalaia, Head of the Constitutional Security Department. The POG says that following the instructions of David Akhalaia, the officers of the Constitutional Security Department put Girgvliani and his friend into a car, illegally took them to Okrokana Cemetery and severely beat them. 

The body of the tortured Girgvliani was later discovered in the vicinity of Okrokana Cemetery. 

The POG says Saakashvili and the then high-ranking officials involved in the case concealed the crime and falsified the case materials, adding only two years after, then President pardoned the murderers independently from the pardoning commission.

By Thea Morrison

Related story:

Tbilisi Court Finds Ex-President Saakashvili Guilty of Abuse of Power