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Georgia’s former Defence Minister Giorgi Baramidze has been arrested, Deutsche Welle reported.
Georgia’s Deputy Prosecutor General Amiran Guluashvili said Baramidze had been charged with treason.
The case was initiated on the basis of statements made by Baramidze during the television programme “The Birth of Georgia”. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, during the interview the 58-year-old politician said that at the beginning of the 1992–1993 war in Abkhazia, Georgian soldiers did not take prisoners but shot them on the spot, as a result of which, unlike the Abkhaz side, the Georgian side had no prisoners available for exchange.
The Prosecutor General’s Office said it had found no evidence to substantiate claims that the Georgian army had shot prisoners of war. Law enforcement officials said Baramidze’s statements were deliberately ideological and propagandistic in nature and served to undermine Georgia’s state and national interests, external security, defence capabilities and state institutions.