New charge presented to former Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili

Today, the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) of Georgia has announced a new charge against the former President Mikhail Saakashvili – of beating the MP Valery Gelashvili in 2005. Investigators have found that the reason for beating Gelashvili up was his interview that he gave in June 2005 to the newspaper "Resonansi", in which Gelashvili expressed his dissatisfaction with the then president and insulted Saakashvili in relation to his personal life, including his wife.

The GPO asserts that after the publication of Gelashvili's interview Saakashvili, aiming to punish the MP on the grounds of personal revenge, ordered the then head of the Defence Ministry Irakli Okruashvili to physically execute Gelashvili; however, the Minister refused. Then, Saakashvili turned to the then Minister of Interior Vano Merabishvili, under whose order Gelashvili was beaten up by Georgian power agents, said the GPO.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Mikhail Saakashvili, who is now abroad, had already saw charges of abuse of power at dispersal of the oppositional action in November 2007, of a pogrom in the "Imedi" TV Company and confiscation of property of the billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili. On August 2, the court arrested him in absentia. Saakashvili himself treats his prosecution exclusively as politically motivated.