The Prosecutor General’s Office of Georgia issued a statement regarding the former chief prosecutor Otar Partskhaladze.

“Taking into account the high public interest, we want to respond to the launch of a renewed disinformation campaign by the representatives of some political unions against the Prosecutor’s Office, the purpose of which is to deliberately discredit one of the important institutions in order to mislead the public by spreading disinformation and interfere with the activities of this agency.

In the last few days, within the framework of the mentioned disinformation campaign, we have heard a lot of completely groundless and slanderous statements about Otar Partskhaladze’s alleged connections with the Prosecutor"s Office.

This is not the first time in recent years that we have heard such lies from certain politicians about our agency, and although we have asked them to disclose relevant evidence or stop making such slanderous statements, they have never presented any evidence to support their statements. Nevertheless, they continue to try to discredit the Prosecutor’s Office with permanent lies.

The specific political force, whose representatives have been litigated for years in a number of criminal cases, is trying to spread disinformation against the Prosecutor’s Office, its leadership and employees.

We understand very well that the purpose of the propaganda disinformation is to hinder the activities of the agency, so that no one is asked to pay for the crimes committed over the years and they escape responsibility, which, of course, will never happen.

As for Otar Partskhaladze, he left the position of the chief prosecutor of Georgia in 2013, and since then, he has had no contact with the activities of the Prosecutor’s Office.

Also, it had nothing to do with the criminal cases against Mikheil Saakashvili. The main line of this slanderous campaign is to connect Otar Partskhaladze with this case, which is easy to understand.

As we mentioned, Otar Partskhaladze resigned in 2013, and the first criminal prosecution against Mikheil Saakashvili started on July 28, 2014. Even these dates clearly show the obvious falsity of such speculations.

Regarding Mikheil Saakashvili’s criminal cases, we would like to remind the public that the Prosecutor’s Office created an international expert council specifically for these cases, which studied the ongoing investigations against Mikheil Saakashvili.

It should be emphasized that the standard of evidence in the existing criminal cases was evaluated by the above-mentioned highly qualified international experts. According to the assessment of international experts, the evidence in the criminal cases created a sufficient standard to initiate criminal prosecution against Mikheil Saakashvili.

We want to assure the public that these similar efforts will not affect our activities. The Prosecutor’s Office will continue to exercise its powers within its competence, in accordance with the legislation, and the activities, independence and inviolability of the Prosecutor’s Office will be fully protected within the standards established by Georgian and international legislation.

As for the legal response to the sanctioning of Otar Partskhaladze by the United States government and the information publicly disseminated related to this matter, an investigation is ongoing at the State Security Service of Georgia, and evidence obtained by them, including the evidence requested from the relevant competent authorities of foreign countries, will be given appropriate legal attention.

Assessment and effective legal response will be made to it, information on which will be provided to the public considering the high public interest”, - reads the statement of the agency.