The Chairman of the Parliament of Georgia responds to the information published on the website of the US Department of Justice.

“Newest revelations on American Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) website reveal the extent of worldwide lobbying on ex-president Saakashvili’s behalf, which attempts to achieve not only his illegitimate release from his well-deserved and fairly adjudicated prison sentence, but, also, tarnishes Georgia’s international image.

From the newly uploaded FARA documents, we have learned that the European Parliament resolutions, criticizing Georgian government, were actually written not by the ‘well-intentioned’ members of the European Parliament themselves but by the paid lobbyists who were commissioned to include these shameful passages into these utterly inaccurate resolutions.

With the recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, we know that Saakashvili’s plea for his transfer abroad for ‘proper medical treatment’ was denied because such treatment was readily available in where he currently is serving his rightful sentence. So, ECHR decision revealed that the campaign about Saakashvili’s ‘mistreatment’ was not just artificial but also entirely falsified.

The new FARA file puts this whole affair into an even graver perspective. Not only was the campaign about Saakashvili’s supposed maltreatment based on falsehood and mystification, but the European Parliament resolutions, directed against the Georgian people were also the work of the lobbyists’ hands.

With these new scandalous revelations, now more than ever, I urge, again, the members of the European Parliament involved in this shameful campaign, to not only halt the campaign against Georgia but also repeal the damage inflicted on our country’s image worldwide.

The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, has recently rightly pointed out that, after Qatargate, it is important to establish new rules that would obligate MEPs to declare their contacts with the lobbying groups. With the disgraceful experience of the whole Saakashvili affair, I join her campaign for greater transparency and accountability in the European Parliament”, - writes Shalva Papuashvili.