Former Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has been charged with new corruption. According to the prosecutor's office, the charges relate to the alleged conspiracy to accept a particularly large bribe by a group of individuals.

Amiran Guluashvili, Deputy Prosecutor General of Georgia, announced the new case. He stated that the testimony of former Defense Minister Juansher Burchuladze, who is currently in custody, played a key role in the investigation. Furthermore, his brother-in-law, Vasil Mkheidze, contacted the investigation in July. The prosecutor's office claims he agreed to cooperate with the investigation and provided them with "full information."

The new charges against Garibashvili come just days after he made a series of public statements about pressure from his former Georgian Dream allies. The former prime minister claimed that they were trying to force him to admit to a new corruption case in order to permanently close his path to politics.

According to Garibashvili, in July he received a letter from Mamuka Mdinaradze, a leading member of the Georgian Dream party. He claims he was informed that, despite his promise not to return to politics, the authorities still saw a 1% chance of such a scenario.

According to his version, to eliminate this risk, he was asked to admit to the new charge. Instead, the former prime minister writes, he was faced with a "dirty, staged provocation" and decided to no longer remain silent.

"Consequently, since I have no other choice, I am being forced to start a fight," Garibashvili wrote.

The first of Garibashvili's three public addresses was published on August 17. The former prime minister then stated that he held Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Georgian authorities responsible for his safety and that of his family. The following day, he published a letter explaining his reasons for making this statement. Garibashvili later made another public statement, continuing to speak of pressure from the authorities.

Georgian Dream reacted harshly to Garibashvili's statement. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze called his statement "problematic" and suggested that the verdict already handed down to Garibashvili be followed, leaving further questions to law enforcement agencies.

Georgian Dream MP Gia Volsky went further, calling the former prime minister's statement "pathetic." He believed Garibashvili was attempting to discredit the authorities and Ivanishvili personally.

Now the conflict has continued in a new criminal case. The prosecutor's office has publicly presented it as the result of testimony from other defendants in the investigation.