Nika Melia on Okruashvili's arrest: I don't want this to be seen as a threat, but Tea Tsulukiani should know that she will be held accountable for everything before an impartial court

Tea Tsulukiani should know that she will be held accountable before an impartial court for everything related to this, and that is exactly what the majority of people living in this country are fighting for — said Nika Melia, one of the leaders of the “Coalition for Change,” in response to the fact that the court replaced former Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili’s bail of 20,000 GEL with pre-trial detention.

According to Melia, the decision made regarding Irakli Okruashvili is an "injustice."

“We attended the court hearing. I don’t want this to be taken as a threat, and generally, I believe that when any politician, especially from the opposition, makes threats (I don’t believe in such threats), they never materialize.

Ms. Tsulukiani should know that she will be held accountable for all of this before an impartial court — something the majority of people in this country are fighting for: many actively, some passively, but fighting nonetheless — for a Georgia where a judge is truly a judge, where the court is a real court, not Bidzina Ivanishvili’s ‘universal store.’ Where the executive branch functions as an actual executive branch, and not as something wired directly to Bidzina Ivanishvili. And where the parliament functions as an independent branch of power. We are fighting for a sovereign and independent state where judges and prosecutors will no longer commit such crimes.

In my view, Irakli Okruashvili did what he believed needed to be done. It’s an injustice! Just imagine — Tea Tsulukiani summons you to an illegitimate parliament, under the framework of an illegitimately formed commission, where it's clearly written (in the regulations) that half of the so-called investigative commission must be composed of opposition members. Only then does the commission have authority. And yet, there’s not a single opposition member in it. So, he refused to recognize this farce,” Melia stated.

For your information, the court replaced former Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili’s bail of 20,000 GEL with pre-trial detention. Accordingly, he was arrested directly in the courtroom.

The decision was made by Judge Nino Tarashvili during today’s preliminary hearing, thereby satisfying the prosecution's motion to replace bail with detention.

To remind you, Okruashvili is accused of failing to comply with the summons from the temporary investigative commission of the Parliament of Georgia.