Parliament speaker: friends of Saakashvili, Kezerashvili “by definition” cannot be friends of Georgia

Georgian parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Tuesday said friends of the imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili and former United National Movement defence minister and now private TV channel owner David Kezerashvili “by definition” could not be friends of the country.

Papuashvili was commenting on a photograph showing a meeting between Kezerashvili and United states foreign policy expert and former ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker in London on July 7, released by the Georgian news agency Kvira.

In his comments, Papuashvili noted the Georgian public was aware of Kezerashvili's past, which he said was “related to getting rich at the expense of the Georgian army”, while noting the former officials’s present activities were “related to interference in politics, media and the non-governmental sector with money”.

“Opposition representatives also directly admit that Kezerashvili's money is in the non-governmental sector, media, politics and parties, and that he manipulates the media, non-governmental sector and parties with this money”, Papuashvili said.

This is the money that was taken from the Georgian army, the Georgian people [and] the military drills carried out on paper a few months before the [2008] war, in which not a single soldier took part”, he continued, claiming €5 million had been “taken from the Georgian soldiers” in a single case under Kezerashvili’s leadership.

Papuashvili added the meeting between Volker and Kezerashvili “raises big question marks as to what is happening to those people who call themselves friends of Georgia”.

Friends of Saakashvili and Kezerashvili, by definition, cannot be friends of Georgia”, the official concluded.