Wanted Defrocked Priest Arrested

Defrocked Orthodox priest Basil Mkalavishvili, who has been wanted by police since last June for numerous attacks against the religious minorities, was arrested today.

Church in the suburbs of Tbilisi, which was a hiding place for Mkalavishvili, was stormed by the riot police this morning.

Reportedly, dozens of Mkalavishvili’s supporters, who tried to prevent arrest, were injured in a clash with the riot police.

“The Interior Ministry was ordered to arrest Mkalavishvili and we fulfilled this order,” Giorgi Baramidze, the Interior Minister who was personally supervising the operation, told reporters.
 
Last year Basil Mkalavishvili was sentenced in absence to three month pre-trial detention. He is accused of organized violence against Jehovah’s Witnesses and Baptist-Evangelists and burning their religious literature over a period of several years.

This was a second attempt to arrest Basil Mkalavishvili. The first one failed last year, as the police preferred to avoid clashes with the supporters of Mkalavishvili.

Arrest of Mkalavishvili follows after he appeared publicly on March 11 and convened a press conference in the backyard of the Public Defender’s Office in Tbilisi and vowed “to fight against the enemies of the Orthodox Christianity.”

Lawyer of Basil Mkalavishvili Davit Jalabadze claimed on March 11, that the term of Mkalavishvili’s pretrial detention has expired; so he cannot be wanted any longer.