The Tbilisi City Court has sentenced one of the leaders of the opposition coalition "For Change" Nika Melia to arrest for refusing to testify to the parliamentary commission investigating the alleged crimes of the previous authorities. This form of restraint replaced the previously appointed bail of 50 thousand lari ($18.3 thousand), which was not paid within the established deadline.
Melia was brought to the hearing from the pre-trial detention center, where he had been held since May 29. That day, he was administratively detained for insulting police officers.
In court, the accused stated that he was obliged to pay bail before midnight, which he was physically unable to do. According to Melia, during his arrest, he was forcibly pushed into a minibus where there were 11 people without police uniforms. The opposition leader's phone was confiscated, and his video recorders were smashed.
However, the judge refused to consider the circumstances of the arrest, after which Melia splashed water in his direction and accused him of complicity in political repression. When announcing the verdict, the judge emphasized that he took into account the “defendant’s behavior” and called him a “disobedient citizen.”
On May 22, a court in Tbilisi sentenced another leader of the “Coalition for Changes,” Zurab Girchi Japaridze, to arrest. He was taken into custody in the courtroom. Earlier, Japaridze refused to pay bail in the amount of 20 thousand lari in the case of failure to appear for questioning by the investigative commission. Before that, former Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili was also arrested in the courtroom – he also failed to appear for the commission’s hearing and also refused to pay bail.
The temporary investigative commission was created by the “Georgian Dream” in February of this year. Initially, it was assumed that it would focus only on the period of Mikheil Saakashvili's rule (2003-2012), but in March its powers were expanded: now, the investigation will also cover alleged violations by the opposition up to the present day. The investigative body is headed by Tea Tsulukiani, one of the veterans of the ruling party, formerly the Minister of Justice, then the Minister of Culture and Sports, and currently a member of parliament.
The investigative body must complete its work within six months. After that, the ruling party intends to send the financial report to the Constitutional Court to have the United National Movement declared unconstitutional.
We remind you that the maximum penalty for "failure to comply with the legal requirements of the temporary investigative commission of parliament" (Article 349 of the Criminal Code of Georgia) is imprisonment for up to one year.
