TBILISI – A court in Tbilisi on July 30 found a co-owner of the opposition television channel Mtavari Arkhi guilty of illegal acquisition and possession of a firearm.
Giorgi Rurua, whose release the opposition leaders tried to secure in talks with the ruling party earlier, has been sentenced to four years of imprisonment.
Rurua was arrested in Tbilisi last November. Police who searched his vehicle found an unregistered pistol.
Representatives from opposition parties think that Rurua’s conviction is political and claim that the weapon had been planted in order to discredit and shut down the channel.
Rurua pleaded not guilty and said his criminal case was political.
Georgian media alleged that Rurua, who was an active member of an illegal armed formation Mhedrioni in the 1990s, committed a murder in Tbilisi but was never prosecuted for it. He had been hiding in the United States under a different name but was exposed and extradited to Georgia, where he did not immediately become a subject of a criminal inquiry.
