Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has commented on the arrest today of former Shida Kartli Province governor Mikheil Kareli, who was dismissed from that post on 12 September.
"The Prosecutor's Office says that it has very well documented, detailed and concrete materials which are incontrovertible. They are submitting this material to the public and to the courts. I do not intend to comment on that. Let the public and the court judge for themselves.
"I want to remind you that already two years ago I spoke about a Gori mafia. I want to say that this was an absolutely incorrect term because it was not a Gori mafia, but a mafia that was directed against Gori, the people of Gori, the Gori public and against Kartli as a whole. It was an anti-Gori criminal group, which was already showing symptoms of being formed back then. At that time, I instructed the former governor, whom I trusted, both publicly and privately on numerous occasions that his number one duty was not to let my very beloved city, Gori, and Kartli be overrun by those bloodsuckers. The materials which have been presented confirm that not only was nothing done to this end, but rather, unfortunately, we received a much worse picture.
"The situation is very clear. As long as I am president of our country, there do not exist, there should not exist and I assure you that there will not exist people who are untouchable and above the law in Georgia, because such people are the people who inside the country [word indistinct] are one of the main obstacles to the unification of the country. Corruption, which we have essentially uprooted, remains a main obstacle. The main thing is that we not react too late. The only questions that may arise here concern the fact that there probably should have been a reaction sooner, there probably should have been interference sooner and there probably should not have been excessive trust and excessive praise for certain people. But better late than never," President Saakashvili said.
Press Office
of the President of Georgia