Mikheil Saakashvili, the former President of Georgia, who is now in prison for various charges, has responded to recent statements from the Prosecutor General’s Office regarding his alleged involvement in the attempted murder of Givi Targamadze. Targamadze, a former associate of Saakashvili and a prominent member of the opposition United National Movement party, survived a car bombing in Tbilisi in 2016.
In a statement posted on social media, Saakashvili condemned the claims as “another disgusting lie from Ivanishvili’s Russian prosecutor’s office.” He added, “This absurd and immoral accusation should not obscure the fact that all other charges against me are fabricated and plucked from thin air and that I am unjustly incarcerated.”
The Prosecutor General’s Office recently announced that they disclosed connections between Saakashvili and the attempted murder of Targamadze, asserting that Saakashvili had expressed concerns about Targamadze’s loyalty and has suspicions about his ties to the ruling Georgian Dream party before the 2016 Parliamentary elections. According to the office, the accused individual Darcho Khechuashvili’s testimony confirmed that the order to monitor and follow Targamadze in 2016 came directly from former President Mikheil Saakashvili. The accused man’s whereabouts are now unknown and as reported, he had recently attempted to illegally cross the Georgian border.
Targamadze claims that the government is using his case to influence the upcoming October 26 parliamentary elections, similar to 2016.
