Interior Ministry may request aid from partners to investigate private footage leak
Investigation to uncover who possessed and spread private life footage of a Georgian MP is underway. Photo: Interior Ministry press office.
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The Georgian Interior Ministry is very likely to request help from foreign partners to investigate leak of a private life footage, featuring Georgian Dream MP Eka Beslia.
Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia stated today that the reason is that “it is always hard to investigate cybercrimes.”
The investigation is underway. If needed – as cybercrime is not easy to investigate – we will request help from our partners,” Gakharia stated.
Gakharia stated that it is important to “find the source” of the footage and the person who decided to make it viral.
The possession and distribution of private footage are such grave crimes that we [the government and the ministry] must do our best to uncover everyone behind the offences and punish them,” Gakharia says.
He stated that “if any compromise made” in such cases and if the initiators or spreaders of such footage are equally punished, it will be hard to combat the crime.
- Seventeen individuals were detained for the possession and spread of the private life footage of Beselia.
- The detention came shortly after the statement of Beselia on 28 January that footage of her private life recorded under the United National Movement leadership had gone viral.
- Three out of 17 detained were sent to pre-trial detention, while 14 have been released on bail.
- Beselia says that it is more important the police to uncover those who were the first who released the footage.
Zurab Solomonashvili who was sentenced to imprisonment is accused in uploading the footage on YouTube. Other seven person were accused in spreading the footage via social network and messaging apps.
One has been detained for uploading intimate private footage on YouTube after the statement of Georgian Dream ruling party MP Eka Beselia, who said on 28 January that footage of her personal life recorded under the United National Movement leadership had gone viral. The individual has acknowledged his guilt in the matter.
The Georgian media reports that “most of the individuals” who have been detained today for the possession and release of private footage are activists of the United National Movement (UNM) and Girchi opposition parties.
Georgia Dream ruling party member Eka Beselia, who left the post of the head of the Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee at the end of December, says that she is facing a moral terror as footage of her personal life has gone viral.
One person has been detained for uploading the private footage of a Georgian politician on YouTube late yesterday, Deputy Interior Minister Natia Mezvrishvili said. She stated that the individual had no private motivation to upload the video, and, consequently, the crime had no client.
Four individuals detained back in February 2019 for the possession and distribution of the personal footage of MP Eka Beselia, have been released on bail after the request of the Prosecutor’s Office to the court.
Through cooperation with Facebook administration the MIA has found out that the accused had been registered on Facebook under the user name Buba Lomtatidze and has released personal footage for several times in January.
Georgian Interior Ministry says that they have identified and charged an individual who was the first to make private footage of Georgian MP Eka Beselia go viral back in January 2019. The ministry says that the individual is a Georgian citizen who is currently imprisoned in Armenia on murder charges.
The Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia has detained an individual for illegally filming and secretly keeping a video depicting the private life of a female acquaintance in the eastern Georgian municipality of Marneuli.