29 Arrested, Charged with Plotting Coup

A total of 29 activists have been arrested and charged with plotting a coup, Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said on September 6.

The detainees are all linked to Moscow-based wanted ex-security chief Igor Giorgadze, including key figures of political groups operating under the umbrella of Giorgadze’s Justice Party.

?Today at 5 am a special operation was held throughout Georgia to arrest the leaders of Igor Giorgadze?s party and its satellite groups? Like the majority of Georgia?s population, we also had information and a suspicion that this group was planning to bring down the government so that Igor Giorgadze could return to Georgia,? Merabishvili said in a statement to the press on September 6.

?Today we have more than enough evidence to bring charges against these people,? he added.

Temur Zhorzholiani, leader of the Conservative-Monarchist Party; Maia Nikolaishvili, chairperson of the Anti-Soros Movement; and Maia Topuria of the Justice Party, who is related to Giorgadze, were arrested in Tbilisi.

Additional arrests were carried out in Batumi, Zugdidi, Samtredia, Gori and in the Kakheti region, where local executives of the Justice Party were detained.

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