Details of murder plot to be revealed after Patriarch’s return to Georgia

Georgia’s First Deputy Chief Prosecutor Mamuka Vasadze says that details related to an alleged murder plot against a high-ranking clergyman of the Georgian Orthodox Church will be revealed after Patriarch Ilia II returns to Georgia.

The Patriarch is expected back home on Monday evening after he underwent a gallbladder removal surgery in Germany earlier this week.

Vasadze said that an investigation into the case launched after journalist Mamuka Mamaladze provided law enforcement agencies with information that an archpriest of the Georgian Orthodox Church was planning to murder a high-ranking clergyman.

Media speculated that the person allegedly being targeted was Patriarch Ilia II, but Vasadze yesterday said ‘I neither confirm nor deny that this person was the patriarch’.

He added that according to the evidence filed in the case, the person allegedly responsible for the plotted murder ‘would have been awarded with promotion in return of carrying out this plot’.

The archpriest who was arrested in connection with the plot, Giorgi Mamaladze, is currently in hospital diagnosed with pneumonia. Doctors said his condition is now ‘stable’ and he is receiving relevant medical care. Mamaladze was taken to the hospital unconscious on Friday night, after several days of a high temperature.

Mamaladze was detained on February 10 and the Prosecutor’s Office made a statement about the detention on February 13.

Yesterday Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili stated that the information was not revealed before February 13 because the Patriarch’s surgery was planned on that day and authorities tried to prevent him from worrying just before the procedure.

"In order to maintain trust and unity in the church, we are still trying to avoid revealing all the details of the case”, Kvirikashvili said.