Interior Ministry: Transparency bill protest detainee testifies he was paid by opposition leaders for “fulfilling certain tasks”

The Georgian Interior Ministry on Friday said one of the detained individuals, charged with assaulting police officers and damaging property during a recent series of public protests over the controversial domestic bill on transparency of foreign influence in the country’s capital Tbilisi, had testified that “he was paid by opposition political leaders to fulfil certain tasks” at the rally.

The Ministry released the footage of the testimony in which the individual said he attended the rally on April 16 against transparency bill, where he overheard a conversation between Nika Melia, the former Chair of the opposition United National Movement party,  Nika Gvaramia, the founder of the domestic Mtavari Arkhi TV and founder of Ahali party, Aleko Elisashvili, the leader of the Citizens opposition party, Giorgi Vashadze, leader of Strategy Agmashenebeli opposition party, Zurab Girchi Japaridze, the leader of the Girchi - More Freedom opposition party and an individual unknown to him on the fact that “they would pay a certain amount of cash” to the young protesters for fulfilling certain tasks.

The detainee, whose identity was not disclosed by the press office of MIA for the protection of personal information, noted he had “voluntarily approached” political leaders and expressed his willingness to perform the task indicated by them in exchange for money, after which he was “immediately paid” ₾1200 (about $448) from the mentioned leaders.

Detainee also claims that the main task was to insult police officers, irritate and provoke them, attract the attention of the law enforcers and damage various police infrastructure as well. [He] admits that he fulfilled the given task, which is confirmed by the footage, and damaged the vehicle of the patrol police department”, the state body said.

The Ministry pointed out that “uploading a video depicting the violent act” on one of the online platforms was “part of his task” as the detainee said in the video, which was recorded with the latter's consent.