Opposition Says its Activist Shot with Air Gun

Opposition said that its activist stationed in one of the improvised cells on a street close to the government’s administration was shot with air gun on April 25.

Television stations showed Temur Beridze, an opposition activist from Batumi, with a blood stain on his face and a wound just below of his right eye.

The opposition has claimed that an air gun pellet was shot from a nearby building, which is housing the office of the Interior Ministry’s general inspection, an internal investigations unit.

Shota Khizanishvili, the interior minister spokesman, said no one had appealed to the police for investigation on the matter.

Meanwhile, Tbilisi-based pro-opposition Maestro TV aired footage showing Vasil Sanodze, a former chief of general inspection, coming out on the balcony of the general inspection’s office, holding, what seemed to be a plastic bag filled with water and throwing it down from the balcony and then hurriedly walking back into room. Maestro TV has claimed that water was poured on opposition activists. The video footage also shows a man standing on the same balcony at that time and holding what seems to be an air gun.

Vasil Sanodze was suspended from office, along with some other Interior Ministry officials, in connection to the case involving murder of Sandro Girgvliani in 2006. Formally he holds no official position since then, but there have always been allegations that he was continuing performing his duties without being formally registered on any official position.

Meanwhile, few thousand protesters reconvened outside the Parliament under grey skies on April 25 – the seventeenth day of protests.

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