Speaking live on Imedi TV’s talk show On the Air late on September 25, Okruashvili picked up where he had left off earlier in the day, when, during the formal launch of his political party - Movement For United Georgia - he had lashed out at his former close ally, Mikheil Saakashvili.
In what appears to be the most serious accusation ever levelled against President Saakashvili, Okruashvili alleged that in July 2005 he was personally ordered by the president to liquidate Badri Patarkatsishvili, a business tycoon. He said that Saakashvili had “a concrete plan” on how to do it.
“Saakashvili told me that we should get rid of him [Patarkatsishvili] in the same way as happened to Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, who was killed in a car bomb attack,” Okruashvili said.
Okruashvili said he subsequently, via an unnamed non-Georgian, passed on the information about Saakashvili’s plan to the Americans. “After that Saakashvili never talked to me about getting rid of Patarkatsishvili,” Okruashvili said.
Okruashvili also claimed that evidence surrounding the death of the late prime minister, Zurab Zhvania, was fabricated.
“I do not want to suggest that Zhvania was murdered,” Okruashvili said. “But what I can say at this point is that Zhvania’s corpse was actually brought into the flat where it was apparently discovered.”
According to the official preliminary conclusions (the General Prosecutor’s Office still hasn't published its final findings) the late PM died of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty gas heater. The heater had been improperly installed in the apartment where Zhvania’s dead body was reportedly found on February 3, 2005 in Saburtalo district of the capital, Tbilisi. Along with Zhvania, Deputy Governor of Kvemo Kartli region Raul Usupov was also found dead in the same apartment, also reportedly killed by carbon monoxide poisoning, Сивил.Ge is reporting.
Relatives of Zhvania and Usupov, who believe that both men were murdered, however, claim that the corpses were moved to the concerned apartment as no fingerprints from the two men were found there.
Okruashvili said that he, as Defence Minister in Saakashvili’s government, had “tolerated persistent injustice” in the hope that he would at least be able to achieve one major goal - the reintegration of breakaway South Ossetia.
The former defense minister said he had had a plan, which, he said, involved only “a small-scale operation and would have caused only a minimum of casualties.” It did not, he stressed, entail a large scale military confrontation.
The plan, if executed, would, he claimed, have seen South Ossetia reintegrated by at least mid 2006.
“It was quite possible with a small scale operation at that time,” Okruashvili said. “But it is impossible now, because now the South Ossetian authorities have had a significant military build-up there.”
He said that President Saakashvili’s “unprincipled” position had foiled the plan.
The former defense minister was particularly scathing of the government's attempts at winning hearts and minds in South Ossetia through Dimitri Sanakoev, an ethnic Ossetian who now chairs the Tbilisi-backed South Ossetian provisional administration. He said Sanakoev had no respect and authority among the population of the region. He also said that installing Sanakoev was “an imaginary attempt” to unite the country.
Okruashvili then continued to attack Saakashvili by saying that his family has gained “billions” since he became President. He alleged that Georgian Railways had been handed over to businessman Rezo Sharangia, whom Okruashvili described as Saakashvili’s “personal treasurer.” He also alleged that Saakashvili’s cousin, Nika Alasania, had control of the import of munitions for the armed forces. “All the arms imported from Israel are under his personal control,” Okruashvili said.
“I will definitely speak more on these crimes, which were masterminded by the authorities,” he said. Okruashvili added: “I was ordered by Saakashvili several times to liquidate certain influential and important people, which I refused to do.” He gave no further details.
People, he said, “are terrorized” because of “repression.” “Those with dissenting opinions are deemed ‘enemies of the state’ and the government is refusing to hold a dialogue with them,” he said.
This, he said, had made it difficult to convince people to engage in public life.
Okruashvili said that the anti-corruption campaign was “unreal.” The prisons, he said, were full of petty criminals, while corruption continued to thrive among “top level officials, Saakashvili’s inner circle and his family.”
“Three years ago when I was Interior Minister,” Okruashvili said, “I arrested Temur Alasania, the president’s uncle, for extortion of USD 200,000. I, however, had to release him on the president’s insistence.”
He also accused the authorities, and personally Saakashvili, of, as he put it, “a deliberate anti-Orthodox Church campaign” and “of fighting against Georgian traditions and values.”
“Saakashvili has an inner hatred of the Georgian Orthodox Church,” Okruashvili said. “The Georgian church is the most respected institution in Georgia. [Because of this] he [Saakashvili] perceives the Church as his main competitor. While in his inner circle, I often heard him talking about splitting the Church and discrediting the clergy.”
He also said that there was “a clear attempt” by the Saakashvili administration “to re-write Georgia’s history, as if nothing Georgian existed before the Rose Revolution, and everything new is being created by Saakashvili.”
Okruashvili admitted that he shared “the responsibility for some mistakes because I was also once part of this government.”
“I, however, have done nothing but good for my country when in government,” he added. “So any attempt to discredit me will fail.”
Towards the end of his speech, he implied that he might have presidential ambitions.
“Georgia will be united only if it has a president who doesn't humiliate and insult its own people,” Okruashvili said.
