Afgan Mukhtarli an Azerbaijani opposition journalist who was kidnapped from downtown Tbilisi in 2017 and ended up serving several years in Azerbaijani jail has said he has identified Georgia’s State Security Service official who personally abducted him.
According to Mukhtarli Giorgi Trapaidze, the head of Georgian counterintelligence was personally in charge of the operation and present at the scene of his abduction and drove the car with which the abduction took place.
Nodar Meladzis Shabati, an investigative show on TV Pirveli first aired the story on October 1.
Mukhtarli has vowed to come back to Georgia to seek justice.
He has also backed claims by Soso Gogashvili, now jailed former Deputy Head of the State Security Service-turned whistleblower who said the order came from Bidzina Ivanishvili himself.
Mr Gogashvili gave a detailed account of the entire operation in a Facebook post on October 4. He said the kidnapping was initially supposed to take place in southern Georgia but was carried out in downtown Tbilisi in a haste as the initial plan failed. He also said the then Head of the State Security Service and now Minister of Internal Affairs Vakhtang Gomelauri had discussed the operation with him on the phone, expressing disdain over the failure of the initial plan, assigned to Otar Kuparashvili, an SSG official.
Gogashvili also admitted he was involved in overseeing destroying the evidence including cancellation of number plates of vehicles involved in the kidnapping as well as erasing CCTV footage from around the crime scene.
“I, obviously, feel my share of responsibility and I will present all information and evidence to an objective [investigation],” - he added in the post.
The former SSG Deputy Chief added Mr Ivanishvili—who holds no office but exercises decisive influence over the Georgian Government—gave the order of Mukhtarli’s kidnapping and handing over to Azerbaijan because his own “close entourage” became unhappy of Mukhtarli criticising the Azerbaijani authorities while based in Georgia.
“If Georgia were to expunge Mukhtarli from Georgia, this would reflect well on their business relations in Azerbaijan. They [unidentified Georgians doing business in Azerbaijan] relayed this information to Ivanishvili who, for his part, tasked his loyal guard, Gomelauri, with solving this issue,” Gogashvili said.
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