Ruling party head justifies attack on TV founder at US Embassy

The Georgian Dream ruling party head Irakli Kobakhidze said on Friday that he would have acted in the same manner – attacked the founder of the opposition-minded TV Pirveli channel Vato Tsereteli – as the GD MP Anri Okhanashvili did at the US Independence Day event on June 30.

 

Kobakhidze suggested that Tsereteli “had received a proper response to a very dirty provocation.”

 

“We know what Tsereteli told Okhanashvili, but we have no plans to repeat that. It was the heaviest provocation beyond the limits of ethics,” Kobakhidze said, repeating  several times that Tsereteli received the answer “within the law and ethics”.

 

“As for leaving the mandates, it is absurd, of course. It was the most serious provocation to which the provocateur received an answer within the framework of law and ethics. His [Tsereteli’s] action requires an adequate reaction,” he added.

 

Tsereteli claimed that four GD MPs attacked him at the event.

 

Both Tsereteli and Okhanashvili called on the embassy to make the footage public.

 

The US Embassy said Thursday that they were looking into the incident.