“Former Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili’s statement, which was not backed by facts and arguments, was seized upon by various opposition leaders and used against our team. Garibashvili bears a double responsibility to ensure that such statements do not become an opportunity to play into the opposition’s hands,” Georgian Dream MP Zviad Shalamberidze told journalists, commenting on former Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili’s latest letter.

According to him, “the fact that some article was published in a newspaper is certainly not serious” and cannot serve as a solid argument for Georgian Dream to “actually launch a case or take some similar step.”

“Any statement that is made, regardless of whether it comes from a member of our team or a former member of our team, must necessarily be backed by very important facts and arguments. Today we are seeing that a statement that was not backed by facts and arguments was seized upon by various opposition leaders and used against our team.

Given that this statement was made by a person who was once the leader of our team, he naturally bears double responsibility to ensure that such statements do not become an opportunity to play into the opposition’s hands. Accordingly, I hope that in the future there will be no more such information that they can seize upon and use against us without any facts or arguments.

The fact that some article was published in a newspaper is certainly not serious. It cannot be a solid argument for us to actually launch a case or take any similar step based on it.

Any such letter published by a former leader of our team carries double responsibility, because it must necessarily be backed by facts and arguments. Any other letter that may be published would be unserious. The public and our team simply cannot take it seriously.

It does not matter whether it is Irakli Garibashvili or any other former member of our team, including someone who may not be in a penitentiary facility. Anyone can make some statement and then various people can build a conspiracy theory around it.

As a member of Georgian Dream, I hope that there will be no more such statements in the future that damage our team,” Shalamberidze said.

For reference, former Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili published another letter from prison, in which he mentioned former colleagues - Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and Mamuka Mdinaradze, who announced several days ago that he was leaving politics.

Garibashvili said that the public had already become convinced that the letter he published, which he said had been sent to him by his former colleague Mamuka Mdinaradze, was authentic and that the facts cited in it were true.

According to the former prime minister, Mamuka Mdinaradze “made such serious and gross mistakes in this matter that this resulted not only in his removal from office but also in his departure from politics.”

“However, I want to make my position clear to the public: removing Mdinaradze from politics cannot erase the grave and irreparable damage inflicted on the country, the people, and Georgian Dream with his and Irakli Kobakhidze’s participation,” the former prime minister said.

In his lengthy letter, Irakli Garibashvili also asks, “What was the real cause of human rights defender Lazare Jorbenadze’s death?” He also says that “unanswered questions remain in society to this day concerning a number of cases of suicide that occurred during the Kobakhidze-Mdinaradze leadership.”