Secret recordings of Georgian citizens destroyed

Forty five disks and two Winchester drives with secret video recordings of the private lives of Georgian citizens have been destroyed at the Interior Ministry today.

The rest of the materials have been handed to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office to investigate.

The secret footage of the private lives of Georgian officials and citizens were illegally recorded and obtained over several years of illegal surveillance.

Today, Interior Minister Alexander Chikaidze said the content of the destroyed recordings were mostly of a sexual nature. Five hundred and ninety additional disks have been given to the Prosecutor’s Office.

Georgia's Deputy Chief prosecutor said the office would start investigating the recordings as soon as possible.

A Temporary State Commission, that oversaw the handling of secret recordings, called for an investigation to find out who gathered the footage and why they were kept.

"No more illegal recordings will be made in the future,” the Interior Minister said, adding that if this happened, the people involved would face harsh punishments.

The Interior Ministry housed about 635 CDs containing more than 750 hours of secret video recordings. They were filmed over a number of years, from 2007 to 2012.

Some recordings were graphic and featured sexual relations including homosexual activity and out-of-marriage-sex filmed from hotel rooms and other locations.

The recordings were discovered in weapons storage in western Georgia in June last year.

To read more about the secret recordings, see the article.