The testimony of police officers questioned in court in the “sabotage” case contains no concrete facts and is based on vague assertions, according to one of the defendants, opposition politician Zurab Japaridze.
According to Japaridze, one of the police officers claimed that he and the leader of the Strategy Aghmashenebeli party, Giorgi Vashadze, allegedly used gestures and verbal appeals to urge protesters to take active action.
“The testimony states that we used gestures and words to call on people to ‘push, and they will get tired.’ However, when we ask what day this happened, at what time, what I was wearing, the witnesses reply that they do not remember. The only thing they remember is us allegedly saying ‘let’s push,'” Japaridze told reporters.
He also noted that he does not dispute the authenticity of the audio recording mentioned by a witness in court today, as the recording was made publicly during a speech in Tbilisi’s Deda Ena Park in 2022.
“That is my voice; the recording was made by your TV channels. There was no covert wiretapping. I was speaking in front of several hundred people, and it happened openly,” the politician said.
In the “sabotage” case, charges have been brought against former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Giorgi Vashadze, Nika Gvaramia, Nika Melia, Zurab (Girchi) Japaridze, Elene Khoshtaria, Mamuka Khazaradze, and Badri Japaridze.
Depending on the individual, they are charged with sabotage, assisting the hostile activities of a foreign state, providing material resources to commit a crime, and calling for a violent change to Georgia’s constitutional order. The most severe of the charges carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
