MP Assaulted, Robbed in Tbilisi

Parliamentarian from the opposition New Rights-Industrialists faction Tamaz Kacheishvili was attacked and beaten up by unknown men late on August 23 in Tbilisi. Kacheishvili also serves as financial manager of the beer producing company Kazbegi.

?Kacheishvili was attacked near his apartment. Then the attackers took him to Mtskheta [a town near Tbilisi] and tied him to a tree in the nearby woods. He was severely beaten. A shepherd found Kacheishvili this morning and untied him. Currently he is hospitalized,? Gogi Topadze, chief of Kazbegi company and ex-parliamentarian told Rustavi 2 television. 

?An investigation has been launched. It is hard to talk about motives, but the fact is that attackers took [Kacheishvili?s] car,? Topadze added.

Leader of the New Rights-Industrialists MP Davit Gamkrelidze told reporters that ?robbery was apparently a motive behind the attack.?

This is the third case of an attack against an MP in the past three months.

Several masked men armed with automatic weapons attacked MP Valeri Gelashvili from the opposition Republican Party in downtown Tbilisi and severely beat him up. Gelashvili accused authorities of masterminding attack.

MP Kakha Kukava of the opposition Conservative Party was badly injured after a group of unknown men attacked, robbed and beat him on May 16 near his apartment in Tbilisi. Later, several suspects were arrested.

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