Gakharia Defends Chorchana Checkpoint to Tsulukiani Commission as GD Revisits its Legacy
Giorgi Gakharia again defended building a checkpoint near the Tskhinvali occupation line in 2019, and implied other Georgian Dream officials might have sabotaged the plan for more checkpoints, as he remotely testified from Germany to the Tsulukiani Commission for the second time on July 2.
Tsulukiani Commission, an investigative body in Georgian Dream’s one-party parliament with steadily creeping scope to probe alleged crimes of former officials, resummoned ex-GD Prime Minister and current opposition party leader Gakharia to testify mid-June, two months after his initial testimony.
Repeated summons came as Georgian prosecutors started probing ex-PM as part of a “sabotage” investigation over posting a police checkpoint near the Tbilisi-controlled Chorchana village adjacent to the Tskhinvali occupation line in 2019, when he was the interior minister. Gakharia offered to testify online since he was abroad. Tea Tsulukiani, former Justice and Culture Minister who chairs the Commission, initially declined to allow remote participation but ultimately agreed.
Gakharia’s decision to testify comes in contrast with other opposition leaders, who chose to boycott, citing their rejection of parliament’s legitimacy. Seven individuals, including six opposition party leaders, have been sentenced to months in jail for defying Commission summonses.
Gakharia Implies Sabotage by Gomelauri, Liluashvili
The key issue during the two-and-a-half-hour questioning—marked by bitter exchanges and mutual accusations—was the Chorchana episode.
The Commission had already questioned Gakharia on the matter during his April testimony. At the time, the former Prime Minister faced accusations from Commission members about failing to coordinate the move with other officials, and about the move ultimately backfiring by prompting Tskhinvali to open additional checkpoints and further push the occupation line into Tbilisi-controlled territory.
During the June 2 testimony, Gakharia again defended his 2019 decision, coming just weeks before he was promoted as prime minister. He said establishing the outpost was necessary to ensure that both Georgian representatives and those from the EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) could conduct patrols without obstruction and to “establish effective control over Georgian territory.”
According to Gakharia, work on the plan began in late 2018 and involved both the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Security Service (SSSG). The plan called for the creation of seven checkpoints, with the first installed on August 24, 2019. The EU Monitoring Mission (EUMM) was also informed about the plan, Gakharia claimed.
Gakharia noted he became Prime Minister on September 8—two weeks after the installation, by which, against the original plan, Russian forces established checkpoints at the coordinates initially selected by the Georgian side.
“Somehow, surprisingly, Russian Federation checkpoints turned up on the coordinates where Georgian checkpoints were supposed to be,” Gakharia said, implying that Vakhtang Gomelauri, who succeeded him as Interior Minister, and then-State Security Service head Grigol Liluashvili may have undermined the original plan. Gomelauri, who quit his post as Interior Minister late in May, testified to the prosecution two weeks after his resignation over the Chorchana episode. He told the press before his testimony that he was against opening the Chorchana checkpoint in 2019.
“Time will come when a special commission will be established, which will figure out why the completion of the plan that was meant to take full control of this road was obstructed? What did [Vakhtang Gomelauri], who at the time had moved into the Interior Ministry, do to stop this process and not bring the plan to an end, or what [Grigol Liluashvili], appointed at the time at the SSSG or as acting head as a deputy, did when all these points [now Russia-controlled] were supposed to be Georgian checkpoints?” – Gakharia told the Commission. “At a certain moment, when this transition phase was underway, this plan was sabotaged.”
Gakharia described the failed implementation of the plan as “the first serious conflict” with the State Security Service leadership, arguing that had the original plan been fully executed, it would have led to the installation of Georgian—not Russian—checkpoints.
GD Claims Tbilisi Lost Control of Territory
Tea Tsulukiani, on the other hand, cited testimony from local resident Elguja Kharazishvili as saying that following the checkpoint installation, locals could no longer enter the nearby Tsagvli forest, as the occupying regime had set up its checkpoint inside and seized half of its territory. According to Tsulukiani, there is a “diametrical” difference between the accounts of the local resident and Gakharia. She demanded that Gakharia answer if his “uncoordinated and reckless move” caused Georgia to lose its territories.
Gakharia rejected the accusation, calling it “absolutely unacceptable” to involve local villagers in what he described as a politically motivated prosecution. He defended the construction of the checkpoint, arguing it was necessary due to the Georgian side’s lack of effective control over the area—an assessment he said was supported by the State Security Service’s 2019 annual report.
(The 2019 report cited by Gakharia described “extremely alarming” and “dangerous” actions by Russian forces, including marking trees and clearing paths to enable “illegal patrolling” in the forests near Chorchana and Tsagvli. It also stated that the Georgian police checkpoint had been placed roughly 250 meters from the occupation line to respond to ongoing borderization activities.)
Gakharia cited specific incidents of Georgian citizens being “detained” by occupation forces, including one involving a hunter who, according to Gakharia, was disarmed and sent back to his village with a warning not to return. Tsulukiani challenged the account, saying that the man was “stopped, disarmed, and released,” accusing Gakharia of lying.
“That’s not detention,” she said. “We will verify your claims, we can’t simply take your word for it, no offense.”
Gakharia further defended the checkpoint by noting that the so-called Tskhinvali General Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation into the Chorchana checkpoint in 2019 – mirroring the Georgian prosecution’s current probe. “And what you are doing now here, you are actually giving testimony and strengthening the occupiers’ interest,” he told the commission.
Legacy Revised
The opening of the police checkpoint led to a flare-up of tensions in August 2019 with de facto authorities in Tskhinvali, who demanded that the checkpoint be dismantled. This was a rare moment under the Georgian Dream administration when police services overtly resisted the demands from Russia-backed Tskhinvali. Some two weeks after the tensions, the Georgian Dream party endorsed Gakharia as prime minister, and backed him prior to his resignation and move to the opposition in 2021.
Gakharia has since faced repeated attacks and accusations from his former party colleagues, from allegations of substance abuse to linking both his appointment as prime minister and later his resignation to foreign interference. “There was a call from the ‘Deep State’ and his appointment as prime minister followed,” GD Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze recalled on June 18, claiming that certain “compromise steps” were taken at the time, which GD no longer tolerates.
Georgian Dream officials have repeatedly invoked the “deep state” conspiracy theory to allege Western interference in Georgian politics, including claims that the West is attempting to drag Georgia into a war with Russia.
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