Prosecutor’s Office: NGOs failed to provide evidence, name a source for their allegations about fake IDs

The Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office has stated that three Georgian NGOs failed to provide evidence or name a source who informed them about possible printing of fake identification documents by a state agency to engineer the elections in favor of the Georgian Dream-endorsed presidential candidate Salome Zurabishvili.

The Prosecutor’s Office says that the heads and executives of the Transparency International Georgia, the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association and the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy were summoned for questioning on Wednesday and they were unable to provide any evidence in support of their allegations and refused to name the source who provided them with the information.

The NGOs stated that they will not name the source as this may create threats to his/her life, despite the fact we have offered them that the individual would be included in the witness protection  state program. The attitude of the NGOs hinders the investigation process. Herewith, based on the Georgian law, heads of NGOs are not in the list of the individuals who have a right not to cooperate with the law enforcement,” the Prosecutor’s Office says.

Minister Thea Tsulukiani believes that the NGOs were either tasked or cheated. Photo: Justice Ministry press office. 

Prosecutor Amiran Guluashvili stated that the head of the State Service Development Agency Soso Giorgadze and other state servants named by the NGOs to participate in the possible wrongdoing have provided the investigation with all necessary information.

 Giorgadze provided the documentation which proves that that time when according to the NGOs a confidential meeting was held at the Service Development Agency regarding the printing of fake IDs he was not in Georgia,” Guluashvili said.

There is no evidence as well which would prove that such a meeting was really held,” Guluashvili stated and added that the investigation is in progress.

Georgian Justice Minister Thea Tsulukiani says that it is possible that the NGOs were either tasked by the United National Movement opposition to tell the lie, or they have become the victims of the opposition.

I believe that the United National Movement needed the NGOs as a speaking trumpet to make the lie trustworthy,” Tsulukiani said.

She says now the NGOs are in a very complicated situation as they have been “caught in telling a lie”.

NGOs held a briefing at the office of the Young Lawyers’ Association of Georgia  on 20 November where they stated that they had received information from a source employed at the Service Development Agency of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia that the government is taking steps to engineer the presidential elections.

The NGOs were not able to provide any evidence, only cited the source saying that ID cards are being printed for one and the same individual for him/her to vote several times for the ruling party endorsed independent presidential candidate Salome Zurabishvili.

The NGOs stated that based on the source the process is headed by Giorgadze and the head of the Internal Audit Department of the same agency Bezhan Obagaidze.

Giorgadze responded to the allegations the same day, calling the statement “absurd.” He stated that carrying out the scenario named by the NGOs is even “theoretically unimaginable”.

He addressed the Prosecutor’s Office immediately to investigate the allegations.