Irakli Kobakhidze - Our goal is to fully meet the growing demand for infrastructure so that more Georgian children can get involved in football - it is also very important to stand by the players both in victory and defeat
Protest rally underway on Rustaveli Avenue
State Security Service: Bachana Akhalaia’s statement is false and serves to distort the truth - particularly immoral is his fabricated claim about "threats to arrest his wife in exchange for testifying against friends and leaving a 13-year-old child orphaned"
State Security Service: We issue a strict warning to everyone: we have both the will and the means to pursue every corrupt deal to the very end; appropriate conclusions must be drawn from the steps we have taken and will take, and criminal activity must cease
The State Security Service detains 4 individuals in 4 separate criminal cases involving corruption and other crimes; 11 people held criminally liable in total
Prosecutor on Akhalaia case: There is information confirming telephone communications; therefore, the charges are supported by evidence; we cannot go into the content because the case is being heard behind closed doors
Bacho Akhalaia’s lawyer: There is no evidence in the case; they don’t know what kind of communication it was; they don’t even have a hypothesis about the content. If there were a call log, you might assume something - but they don’t even know whether there was a call at all
Bacho Akhalaia remanded in custody as a preventive measure
Gia Volski: It is unfortunate - no one takes pleasure in punishing anyone, even the sadist Bacho Akhalaia, but in reality there is a state interest that must be considered above all else
Bacho Akhalaia before his arrest: I didn’t take it seriously that Ivanishvili was telling his supporters that a man who spent 10 years in prison was plotting a coup against them - the authorities claim there were conspiratorial meetings; that’s not true, I am not involved in this case