Girchi’s Khvichia: Baramidze’s statement was absurd, but does not make him traitor

“You can blame Baramidze for everything, and I will not defend him. What he said was absurd, but that does not make him a traitor to his homeland,” Girchi leader Iago Khvichia said in an interview with POSTV.

Khvichia said the detention of United National Movement member Giorgi Baramidze over remarks he made on Khvichia’s program — which may have reflected his “personal perception of something that happened 32 years ago” — suggests that the Prosecutor’s Office had no other genuine charge against him.

“I am angry. This means you had no other real charge against Baramidze. You came promising to restore justice, and instead of restoring justice, you have put everyone in an unjust situation. You had veterans file a complaint against their own colleague. I am sure none of those people actually wanted Baramidze arrested. I understand that they were angry and would have demanded an explanation from him themselves, but you did not even let them do that. Even if they had beaten him, they would have dealt with him themselves — why did you send the man to prison?

I demand that I not be prevented from making my own program. There is simply nothing in my program that amounts to Baramidze committing treason against the homeland. This is a disgrace for Georgian justice, beginning with the dean’s office of the law faculty that educated the person who concluded that this constitutes a crime.

“You spent your whole lives calling them the ‘bloody UNM,’ and in the end, you arrested a man because he recounted an event from 32 years ago. As a member of the Prosecutorial Council, I am also interested in the legal basis for prosecuting someone for treason not over what they did or did not do, but because they recounted something 32 years later and are now being prosecuted for sabotage. This will be an absurdity of encyclopedic proportions — something that should be included in a law faculty syllabus,” he said.

At the same time, Khvichia stressed that he considered Baramidze’s statement absurd.

“I do not want the public to think that I agreed with Baramidze’s words. The next day, I made a program in which I explained in detail what Baramidze got wrong, and I did not agree with him either. If someone asks me, I believe he said something absurd,” Khvichia said.

Khvichia called on the prosecutor handling the case to publicly explain the charges against Baramidze.

“I want the prosecutor in this case to come out publicly and discuss what he is charging him with and under which article. Since everything in this case has been public, I want the matter to be discussed publicly. I had nothing to do with this, but I was dragged into it for a reason. I have never wanted to get involved in the Georgian Dream-UNM confrontation. No prosecutor on Earth will be able to explain to me how what Baramidze said has anything to do with treason against the homeland. This is absurd,” Khvichia said.

“I want the court to make the decision that should be made. This is something recounted 32 years later, which is one person’s assessment and perception. A person may have perceived something in a certain way, but what does something he thought 32 years ago have to do with treason against the homeland? People are not prosecuted for false information. War crimes have no statute of limitations — talking about them does not mean the same thing,” he said.

“If everything he said is false, and I agree that it is false, then he did not commit something 32 years ago — he committed it now, on my program. Let someone come out and discuss publicly what treason against the homeland means. What does initiating a criminal case have to do with someone saying something? What I like or dislike is a separate issue. You cannot arrest a person for speaking,” Khvichia said.

“You can blame Baramidze for everything, and I will not defend him. What he said was absurd, but that does not make him a traitor to his homeland. You came promising to restore justice, and this is not the restoration of justice. A bureaucrat is arresting a politician over a political statement that may have been absurd,” he added.

The Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia arrested Gia Baramidze, a senior leader of the opposition United National Movement (UNM) and former Minister of Internal Affairs and Defence (2003–2004), pursuant to a court warrant on charges of state treason, specifically manifested through sabotage.