Council of Europe: no need for former Georgian interior minister to be released
Tweet 
Share
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe released a consolidated statement, reporting that domestic courts of Georgia fairly detained former Interior Minister and PM of Georgia Vano Merabishvili.
The decision comes in response to a demand to have the former minister released.
The meeting was held today in Strasbourg.
Merabishvili claimed his pre-trial detention had not been governed by legal rules and sentencing him to prison was unreasonable.
Merabishvili also claimed his pre-trial detention served the purpose of excluding him from being involved in the country’s political life, as he was appointed Secretary General of UNM after the 2012 Parliamentary Elections and he intended to participate in the 2013 presidential elections.
Merabishvili, one of the most influential figures of the United National Movement, was detained in 2013 and sentenced to five years in prison in 2014 for abuse of power, misspending of budget funds and bribing voters.
In September 2016 Merabishvili was further sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for charges related to the beating of opposition lawmaker Valeri Gelashvili in 2005.
The Committee of Ministers is the Council of Europe’s statutory decision-making body. It is made up of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of member states.
The Ministry of Corrections has stated today that former Interior Minister Ivane (Vano) Merabishvili has been transported to Mediclub hospital in Tbilisi in the morning for additional blood checks, in order to dispel his lawyers’ speculations that Merabishvili could have been poisoned in prison or that he may have cancer.
Georgia’s former Interior and Prime Minister under the United National Movement leadership Ivane (Vano) Merabishvili was transported to hospital yesterday due to respiratory problems, his lawyers told the media.
The Georgian Justice Ministry says that former Interior and Prime Minister of Georgia under the previous state leadership Ivane Merabishvili was transported to a hospital yesterday for medical checks following earlier treatment, which revealed that the life and health of the former top official is not at risk.
The pre-trial detention of former Georgian Prime Minister Ivane (Vano) Merabishvili was lawful, but later it was unduly used as a means to exert pressure on him, says the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) adopted a decision on conflict in Georgia at its 1345th meeting of minister’s deputies in Strasbourg on May 2. The deputy ministers reiterated CoE’s “unequivocal support” for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders.