Politician Givi Targamadze appeared at Tbilisi City Court, where he is giving testimony before a magistrate judge.

He was initially summoned by the Prosecutor’s Office to give testimony due to his failure to appear before the parliamentary temporary investigative commission. Since he didn’t show up at the Prosecutor’s Office, he was then called to court.

“As far as I know, there’s only one question — whether I had been warned about the sanctions that would be applied in case of non-appearance. I agree, I was indeed warned.

Apart from the fact that I do not recognize the Prosecutor’s Office politically, I also don’t recognize it personally, because the bombing case against me was demonstratively not investigated — on the contrary, they participated in covering up the facts. Naturally, I will not cooperate with this Prosecutor’s Office.

As for the investigative commission, it was created based on a personal letter from Ms. Kakabadze. Kakabadze is someone who used to give interviews on television, claiming that if it hadn’t been for Putin, I would have staged a revolution in Russia. A commission formed on the basis of such a letter from an openly pro-Russian person will never see me set foot in it.

According to the letter I received, they supposedly have questions about defense and security, which is a mistake — I was responsible for defense and intelligence, not security, from 2003 to 2012. They also wrote that they’re interested in the human rights situation of that time — if they really are, then the Ombudsman from that period, Sozar Subari, is sitting right there — they should ask him,” Targamadze said.

Givi Targamadze was summoned to Parliament’s temporary investigative commission to provide an explanation on April 3. According to established procedure, he is expected to be formally charged following the interrogation.

For context, the investigation is being conducted under Article 349 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, which concerns “failure to comply with a request from the Parliament’s temporary investigative commission.” The offense is punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to one year, and/or deprivation of the right to hold office or engage in certain activities for up to three years.