Giorgi Baramidze, a member of the opposition United National Movement (UNM) and former Interior and Defense Minister, was detained at his apartment in Tbilisi on September 11 on “high treason” charges over remarks about Georgians not taking prisoners during the 1992-1993 armed conflict in Abkhazia since the Georgian side was “executing” them.
The arrest comes nearly a month after the Prosecutor General’s Office announced that it had launched an investigation into Baramidze’s remarks made in a July episode of a YouTube show.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Baramidze will be charged “with high treason, namely sabotage,” facing a prison sentence of up to four years if convicted. The agency has been conducting an investigation under Articles 307-prima (high treason) and 318 (sabotage) of the Criminal Code.
The investigation “has unequivocally ruled out any instances of the execution of prisoners of war by members of the Georgian armed forces or other war participants during the armed conflict,” the Prosecutor’s Office said on September 11, following the arrest. “The information disseminated by Giorgi Baramidze is unfounded and made up, carries a deliberately ideological-informational character, and serves to damage Georgia’s state and national interests, foreign security, defense capabilities, and state institutions.”
The prosecutors said they will be seeking pre-trial detention, with the court yet to decide on the preventive measure.
The detention was broadcast live on Facebook by Baramidze’s wife, Anna Fylypchuk. In the footage, several officers can be seen apparently completing an arrest report while allowing Baramidze to change his clothes. Officers are then seen handcuffing him and escorting him out of the apartment and into an elevator, after which the livestream ends.
The case stems from Baramidze’s appearance on the Birth of Georgia program, in an episode published on YouTube on July 18, where he discussed his role during the war in Abkhazia and his efforts to secure the release of Georgian prisoners back when he was a member of the Georgian Parliament.
Baramidze said the exchange of prisoners stalled because the Georgian side had no prisoners to offer in return. “They [the separatists] stopped giving us prisoners, because we didn’t have prisoners. Our side was not taking prisoners,” he said. Asked by the program host, libertarian Girchi (renamed Free People’s Party) party leader Iago Khvichia why, Baramidze replied: “They [our side] were executing [them].”
He also said he had personally gone to the front line on several occasions to prevent captured individuals from being shot so they could later be exchanged.
In a statement made on August 8, Baramidze said, “It would have been better to use different wording” during the show, “one that would not confuse anyone and would more accurately reflect the objective events.”
“I never said that our side was shooting people who had their hands raised or were prisoners. I have never seen anything like that, nor am I aware of any such facts,” he argued.
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