President Salome Zurabishvili held meetings with the Ambassadors of the EU member states at her official residence, reportedly discussing the EU integration process and the ruling party’s intention to impeach the president. The EU Ambassador to Georgia, Paweł Herczyński, also attended the meeting. Ambassadors did not comment before or after the meeting. Yesterday, Salome Zurabishvili consulted with opposition representatives on securing the EU candidacy and related challenges.
Amid the unfolding scandal of alleged misuse of state-owned aircraft for personal use, Anzor Chubinidze, the head of the Special Protection Service, claimed that the prime minister’s father, Tariel Garibashvili, paid for PM Irakli Garibashvili’s flight to Munich and back on route to the USA. According to Anzor Chubinidze, the cost for the charter flight in question is around EUR 34,000 in GEL. “As for the budget payments, I would like to confirm to the public that at the initial stage, at the time of the order, it was clearly indicated that the payment would be made from non-budget funds.”- noted Anzor Chubinidze.
An English-language online media outlet, OC Media, claimed that the speaker of the parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, directly addressed one of the institutional donors of OC Media in a bid to pressure or punish the outlet for declining to publish his op-ed piece. According to OC Media, the request from the speaker’s office was rejected due to the repeated refusal to send the op-ed text until confirming the publication. In a letter sent to one of the donors, Shalva Papuashvili reportedly refers to a shared understanding of Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations, blaming the donor for funding an organization that provides only one-sided coverage of Georgian politics and refuses even to consider a differing opinion for publication. Later, Shalva Papuashvili published rejected piece on his personal X (formerly Twitter).
Special Investigation Service closed the case of Misha Mshvildadze, the co-founder of the opposition TV channel “Formula.” According to Mshvildadze’s attorney, the Investigation Service concluded the case without yielding any results, failing to provide the victim with crucial footage and neglecting evidence uncovered by Formula TV during their journalistic investigation. Following the attack on Misha Mshvildadze, the “Formula TV” journalistic investigation obtained video evidence about the assault, revealing the presence of special services personnel at the scene and their possible involvement in the physical attack. The State Security Service confirmed that the person who appeared in the video of the assault on Mshvildadze is one of their employees but rejected his involvement in the incident.
Interior Ministry announced the departure of a boarding team consisting of 12 Law Enforcement Tactical Group officers within the Coast Guard Department of the Georgian Border Police for Greece to join the NATO Maritime Security Operation (MSO) known as “Sea Guardian.” Following a successful four-level assessment by NATO, which took several years, the tactical units of the Coast Guard under the interior ministry were designated as operational partners for the “Sea Guardian” operation in the Mediterranean Sea in 2022. Georgia is the first non-NATO country to achieve this status.
Interior Ministry claimed the arrest of 46 individuals nationwide on drug-related charges, with 36 of them identified as drug dealers. According to the ministry’s statement, the detainees come from various national backgrounds, including Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, Egypt, Nigeria, Iran, Yemen, and Jordan. Reportedly, they face a 20-year prison sentence or life imprisonment.
