“On the days when the protests were taking place, there were intoxication cases caused by alcohol, and possibly by pyrotechnics. There was not a single person who had to remain in the hospital even for one day as a result of this intoxication. And yet we are claiming that people were confronted with a means that is lethal,” – this is what the Minister of Health, Mikheil Sarjveladze, told journalists when speaking about the investigative material published by the BBC.

According to the Minister of Health, the number of people who required hospitalization was no more than 10. Moreover, Mikheil Sarjveladze believes that the protest held in November–December of last year was an illegal protest.

“During an illegal protest, of course, the police and law enforcement forces in every normal country have the right to use various police means, including those that cause irritation of the respiratory system, tearing, and so on. In any normal, democratic, civilized, and law-based state, the police have the right to use such means - including tear gas, water cannons, etc. By the way, to be completely fair, pyrotechnics also have harmful properties. Right now, any of you can open your phone, check ChatGPT or any source, and look up what this amount of pyrotechnics used in an enclosed space could cause to people. Look at that too, it will be interesting for you. After this, the dispersal of this protest takes place - which was illegal - conventional means were used, and now they tell me that I must investigate a specific formula just because someone provided BBC with incorrect information, BBC published it without verification - willingly or unwillingly - and therefore I am supposed to sit and examine some specific data that I already know in advance is absolutely false and a blatant lie,” Sarjveladze stated.

According to him, he trusts qualified doctors rather than the Chakhunashvili family, whose claims the BBC report was incorrectly based on.

“Very qualified, exceptionally high-level specialists stated clearly that the situation is such that there is no solid basis, no real grounds to draw a conclusion that people were poisoned with gas used in World War I, etc. This is what doctors said, and under these conditions, of course I trust not the Chakhunashvilis’ assertions - on which the BBC relied incorrectly - but the highly qualified toxicologists who said there is no reason to assume, no objective basis for concluding that any illegal substance was used.

As for the specific substance - what was purchased, how it was purchased, what its formula and characteristics are - I said this last year, I’ll say it this year, and if someone asks, I’ll say it next year too: the Ministry of Internal Affairs has the exact information. Yes, of course I believe and I am convinced that the Ministry of Internal Affairs acted in full compliance with legal requirements when using these means,” Sarjveladze said.