Saakashvili: People who seek foreign intervention in Georgia will “achieve nothing”

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said there are people outside and inside Georgia who “are looking forward” to foreign troops entering Tbilisi “in order to take [ruling] positions and make better lives for themselves.” Saakashvili was speaking at the awards ceremony of the Georgian police officers who were holding investigation of Interior Ministry official, Dimitri Kordzadze. Kordzadze died in a car bomb explosion in Batumi last year. The Georgian Interior Ministry has said that Russian security forces were behind the murder. “Georgia is in a big battle,” Saakashvili stated, saying that the people who are seeking foreign intervention in Georgia will “achieve nothing”.

“First of all, the Georgian people will never accept it – Georgia has an effective government and what’s important in this case – an effective security service, special structures of the Interior Ministry, which have learnt about investigating crime on a very high level. These people have turned the country into a safe place for its citizens,” the President said “they have also learnt how to answer any aggressive foreign elements and their allies,” he added.

Saakashvili called on respecting the representatives of the Georgian police and the armed forces. “Our society should know, we should all remember that they are the best part of our society for one simple reason – periodically they have to pay the highest price – they sacrifice their lives,” the President stated “Georgia should never forget this. Those people, who threaten their lives will have to pay a high price for this,” Saakashvili noted.

He thanked the officers for investigating Kordzadze’s murder case. “You have demonstrated to everyone, that Georgia is an accomplished state, which can defend itself and its citizens,” he said “all perpetrators of this act are now detained, however not all organizers are arrested – they are wanted and according to our information, serve in the security structures of a foreign state. However there will come a time and they, as well as their ‘patrons’ will be held accountable for a terrorism sponsored by state,” the President said.

Georgian Interior Minister, Vano Merabishvili said last week that Russian special agencies were behind the murder of Officer Kordzadze, which was killed in a car explosion on May 5, 2010. According to the information posted on the Georgian Interior Ministry’s official website, in 2009 the sellers of “stolen cars” – Otar Rogava and Temur Butbaia were contacted by an Abkhaz criminal Almer Butba and a member of the de facto Abkhazian Parliament, Slavik Vardania and introduced “two Russian men” to them. According to the Georgian Ministry, the Russian men handed over a photo of Dimitri Kordzadze to Rogava and Butbaia and asked them to find out his address and everyday route and paid USD 5000 in advance.

The Interior Ministry said that in March 2010 Rogava and Butbaia met the two Russian men on the territory of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia and received an order about murdering Kordzadze. According to MIA statement, they were handed explosives, which were later installed in Kordzadze’s car. After the murder, Butbaia and Rogava received USD 42 000, Georgian law enforcers reported. Butbaia, Rogava and two other persons were detained in 2010 by the Georgian police. “There is proof that Russian special agencies were involved in Dimitri Kordzadze’s murder,” Interior Minister, Vano Merabishvili said on March 22.