The Ministry of Internal Affairs publishes the confession of one of the detained demonstrators, where he says that he received GEL 1,200 GEL from the opposition leaders, and the task was to insult the policemen.

“Based on the high public interest, we would like to provide society with information on the ongoing investigation at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

As it is known to the public, police arrested 6 people for the crimes committed during the recent protests on May 8-9, namely for the assault on a police officer and property damage.

All six detainees have been charged by the prosecutor’s office, and according to the court decision, they were placed in pretrial detention.

In order to ensure the protection of personal information, the Ministry of Internal Affairs will not disclose the identity of the person whose testimony will now be made public.

One of the detained individuals, in his testimony given to the law enforcement officers, notes that he attended the manifestation on April 16, when he heard the conversation between certain political leaders, namely, Nikanor Melia, Aleko Elisashvili, Nika Gvaramia, Giorgi Vashadze, Zurab Japaridze and an individual unknown to him, on the fact that they would pay a certain amount of cash to the young protesters for fulfilling certain tasks.

The detainee noted that he voluntarily approached political leaders and expressed his willingness to perform the task indicated by them in exchange for money.

According to the detainee, he was immediately paid 1200 GEL from the task initiators.

Detainee also claims that the main task was to insult police officers, irritate and provoke them, attract the attention of the law enforcers and damage various police infrastructure as well.

The detainee admits that he fulfilled the given task, which is confirmed by the footage, and damaged the vehicle of the patrol police department.

According to him, after damaging the vehicle, he uploaded a video depicting the violent act on one of the online platforms, specifically on “Instagram”. It should also be noted that uploading a video was part of his task.

We are publishing the video recorded with the consent of the detainee, a part of the testimony, where he recalls the developed events.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs continues the investigation and reiterates that the law enforcement officers will relevantly respond to each illegal action”, - reads the statement of MIA.