A screengrab from Interior Ministry’s video showing masked law enforcement officers escorting detained man, who the police say is suspected of being one of the two attackers against opposition politician Alexi Petriashvili.
Police arrested a man suspected of being one of the two perpetrators who attacked and wounded one of the leaders of the Free Democrats opposition party, Alexi Petriashvili, the Interior Ministry said on March 7.
Petriashvili, former state minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, suffered three gunshot wounds in the attack while visiting a grave of his late friend at a cemetery in Saburtalo district of Tbilisi on February 26; he remains in hospital.
The man was arrested “several days after the attack” in the town of Borjomi in Samtskhe-Javakheti region, the Interior Ministry said without giving exact date when the arrest was made.
The Interior Ministry’s statement, which declares the case to be “solved”, does not mention anything about attackers’ possible motives.
It also does not give full name of the arrested man, identifying him as Levan M., born in 1975.
“Levan M., together with his accomplice, inflicted injuries to Petriashvili’s head with a hammer, fired gunshots and wounded him, and then hit him with a baton for several times,” the Interior Ministry said, adding that investigators found the hammer and a cap close to the crime scene and DNA collected from these items link the arrested man to these pieces of evidence.
The Interior Ministry said that efforts are underway to arrest another attacker.
Free Democrats opposition party welcomed that the police have “arrested one of the perpetrators”, which, it said, should help to investigate fully the attack against Alexi Petriashvili.
MP Irakli Chikovani, who chairs Free Democrats’ parliamentary faction, said that Interior Minister Giorgi Mgebrishvili pledged to solve the case when he met leaders of the Free Democrats last week.
“But the case cannot be considered solved unless all the accomplices of this horrendous crime are arrested,” he said.
The Interior Ministry investigates the case under the article 117 of the criminal code, involving intentional infliction of grave bodily injury.
Free Democrats party reiterated its demand on March 7 to re-categorize the case and to treat it as an attempted murder.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)