PM Comments on Merabishvili’s Mukhrovani Video
Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said that personally for him a 2009 Mukhrovani video which emerged on January 29 is a proof that then interior minister Vano Merabishvili was giving an order to kill.
“This is a disaster; we are astonished,” the PM, who is now in Munich attending annual security conference, told Georgian journalists on January 31.
“Law enforcement agencies will give more competent assessment to it, but I, as a citizen, can say that it is extremely grave. We have actually witnessed how the former interior minister and former prime minister ordered to organize two corpses, to liquidate two persons. The investigation will find out the rest and I call on the prosecutor’s office to solve this case very soon,” PM Garibashvili said.
“Merabishvili says ‘bring me two corpses’ and bonus will be paid – this is directly a commissioned murder, motivated by self-interest,” he added.
Ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, who was in Munich on January 31 as he said for a meeting with Ukrainian opposition leaders, declined to comment when asked by journalists about the Mukhrovani video.
“Please, do not involve me in politics,” he said smiling. “I’ve had enough of Georgian politics in my life in order to now leave me alone at least over this issue.”
When asked about this video, President Giorgi Margvelashvili said on January 30: “No matter how difficult emotionally it might be to refrain from [commenting], we live in the state which is based on rule of law, where presumption of innocence of every person is protected and only prosecutor’s office and the judiciary have to consider this issue, not politicians.”
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