UNM Leader Says Her Husband Abducted, Forced to Apologize to Ivanishvili’s Son
Tina Bokuchava, chairwoman of the opposition United National Movement (UNM) party, said her husband was abducted and forced to release a video apology to Uta Ivanishvili, son of Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, for 2018 claims about his sexuality.
Bokuchava’s statement comes a day after her husband, Kote Ioseliani, released a video on social media in which he apologized to Uta Ivanishvili for his remarks seven years ago, apparently referring to his claims at the time that Ivanishvili’s son had been in a romantic relationship with a senior male official. UNM Chairwoman says the abduction was meant to intimidate her.
“A statement about Uta Ivanishvili seven years ago, for which Kote had already publicly apologized a few days after making it, cannot be the real reason for his violent abduction yesterday. This is only a pretext,” Bokuchava said in a June 9 briefing. “The real goal is to intimidate and silence me.”
According to Bokuchava, five masked individuals ambushed her husband at night, forced him into a car, blindfolded him, and took him to an unknown building, where he was held for eight hours. She said that during that time, the assailants threatened to harm his children and pointed out his daily routes and the locations of his 10-year-old son’s school and his 2-year-old twins’ kindergarten. Bokuchava said that she tried to contact her husband, but he was not allowed to use his phone. She argued that the abduction and threats against her family forced her husband to apologize to Uta Ivanishvili for his 2018 homosexuality remarks for the second time.
“I am not afraid. I will not stay silent. And I will fight to dismantle your violent, treacherous regime,” Bokuchava told her opponents in the ruling party, addressing, among others, Bidzina Ivanishvili and newly appointed Interior Minister Gela Gelashvili.
In 2018, Ioseliani, a member of the UNM, told a journalist on air about “rumors in town” of a romantic relationship between Uta Ivanishvili and one of the top government officials at the time. Shortly after that claim, he apologized. “I apologize if I acted unethically or hurt anyone’s feelings.”
In a surprising, nearly one-minute video released on Facebook on June 8, 9:02 am, some seven years after the remarks, Ioseliani said he was “genuinely” apologizing to Uta, noting that his remark “was a lie” and he has “never heard anything about [Uta Ivanishvili’s] orientation.”
“It’s never too late to apologize,” Ioseliani says in the video. “Certain circumstances had led me to phrase that claim in that way, which I genuinely regret.”
Ioseliani’s June 8 video apology immediately raised questions about his potential intimidation.
Such things “happen in Kadyrovshina,” not in democracy, UNM politician Khatia Dekanoidze wrote on Facebook on June 8, implying the apology mimicked intimidation practices in Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechnya and questioning whether the apology was voluntary.
Following UNM leader’s June 9 briefing, Ana Tsitlidze, Bokuchava’s another party colleague, implied that Bokuchava’s intimidation may also be intended to pressure her party to participate in the upcoming local elections, which UNM has vowed to boycott.
“Kote’s abduction aimed to influence Tina. They failed to bribe, arrest, win over, or break her, including with respect to boycotting the local elections,” Tsitlidze wrote on social media on June 9.
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