Georgia has arrested its ex-defence minister and top general in the first major case of alleged power abuses under President Mikheil Saakashvili's recently ousted government, officials said Wednesday. Former defence minister Bacho Akhalaia and current army chief of staff Giorgi Kalandadze were detained as part of an investigation into the physical and verbal abuse of servicemen, the ex-Soviet state's chief prosecutor said.
"An investigation is under way by the office of the chief prosecutor of Georgia into a criminal case over the misuse of office by defence ministry officials," prosecutor Archil Kbilashvili said in televised comments. Kbilashvili said that in October 2011 the accused had insulted and hit six soldiers at Akhalaia's defence ministry office and then verbally and physically abused them again at an army base near Tbilisi. A lawyer for the men rejected the allegations as false but said he expected charges to be filed within days.
"The reason for launching the investigation is obviously absurd," the lawyer, David Dekanoidze, told Georgian media. The arrests came after billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili's new government took office following its defeat of Saakashvili's party at parliamentary polls last month. Ivanishvili's administration has vowed to tackle wrongdoings under the Saakashvili government, which dominated Georgia for nine years, but has also promised not to conduct witch-hunts against former officials.
"This was not a political arrest and, as far as I know, there were legal grounds for it," Ivanishvili told journalists. "Everything has been done with the full observance of the law," he said. However Saakashvili's allies claimed the detentions were politically motivated.
"There is every sign of the use of the prosecutor's office for political ends and political revenge," Giga Bokeria, who remains head of Georgia's national security council despite the change of government, said in televised comments. Close Saakashvili ally Akhalaia held a series of top positions in the former government and became deeply unpopular with some of its opponents. He served as defence minister from 2008 to 2012 before briefly working as interior minister from July to September 2012.