Bacho Akhalaia’s arrest serves to cover up the systemic corruption of “Georgian Dream,” said Lasha Farulava, a member of the United National Movement, during his appearance on PalitraNews’ program “360 Degrees.”

According to Farulava, “Georgian Dream” is responsible for the events of October 4, because people gathered on Rustaveli Avenue precisely to protest its actions.

"The organizer of October 4 was ‘Georgian Dream,’ which carried out a Russian-style special operation. Tens of thousands of Georgian citizens gathered on Rustaveli Avenue to protest this special operation, and the protest took place. A huge number of people were protesting the actions of ‘Georgian Dream.’ On October 4, Freedom Square was filled, and people stood all the way to Parliament. Certain individuals made sacrifices and took steps, but expectations were different. There were expectations that the government’s special forces would side with the people—public statements to that effect were made. Of course, this turned out not to be true.

It was impossible that Liluashvili and others would take steps against Ivanishvili. How can a slave become free?

Bacho Akhalaia’s arrest serves to cover up the systemic corruption of ‘Georgian Dream’: the restoration of bribery in the energy sector, the theft of children’s food rations, the existence of ‘call centers,’ and the fact that the State Security Service (SSS), which is supposed to protect our security with our money, was in charge of all of this,” Farulava said.

When asked that if “Georgian Dream” wanted to cover up Liluashvili’s arrest, then why did it arrest him at all, and whether it is instead trying to amplify the issue by arresting Akhalaia, Farulava replied that by arresting Liluashvili, “Georgian Dream” covered up the BBC’s scandalous report. However, this case caused a major crack even within the ruling team, which is why the Akhalaia issue was introduced.

“The BBC’s scandalous report was shocking for ‘Georgian Dream.’ They had no message box, made contradictory statements, were confused, then pulled themselves together and told us: ‘We investigated this case and the issue is closed.’ In reality, nothing is closed. Where are the handover and acceptance documents? Show them to us—did they? They couldn’t close this issue and instead blew up the Liluashvili story.

We had been demanding Liluashvili’s arrest for a long time, demanding a response to the ‘call centers,’ calling the police—why weren’t the police coming? If Liluashvili is guilty, where is he, and why has Vakhtang Gomelauri not been arrested?

Why did they need Bacho Akhalaia when three months have already passed since October 4? Because they are in a very serious situation. All of this is connected to the story of chemical poisoning. They needed to arrest Liluashvili to cover up this issue, but Liluashvili caused such a huge crack within ‘Georgian Dream.’ I don’t know a single person in this city who wasn’t shocked to learn that ‘Georgian Dream’ was stealing food rations from small children in kindergartens.

Liluashvili and the head of the kindergarten agency were acting in coordination, and supposedly Kakha Kaladze didn’t know about this, even though there was a public statement by Levan Khabeishvili addressing this issue. And do you know how they confronted Levan Khabeishvili? Zarkua and his group physically assaulted him in the City Council—this was ‘Georgian Dream’s’ response,” Lasha Farulava said.