TBILISI, June 24 (RAPSI) – Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has said that secret arms caches were created across the country on his instructions.
The state security service of the Georgian Interior Ministry announced a week ago that it had found secret caches of weapons, drugs and videotaped acts of torture hidden in Samegrelo, western Georgia, set up by high-ranking ministry officials under the previous government.
The police said the find also included an archive of photographs and personal files of opposition members "who were to be framed and arrested if the pro-presidential United National Movement won the October 1, 2012 parliamentary elections."
Some of the documents are in writing and can be used as material evidence for purposes of "rapid identification and arrest."
There are also videotapes of people being tortured, sexually abused, beaten and humiliated by law enforcement officials.
The Georgian Dream coalition led by current Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili won the October 1, 2012, parliamentary election, forcing the United National Movement, which had ruled Georgia since the Rose Revolution in 2003 and is led by President Mikheil Saakashvili, into the opposition.
"I gave permission to create these secret caches, because we must not be as defenseless as we were in 2008 in case of a new aggression," Saakashvili said. "There was nothing new in these secret arms storages for me, for the government or for the Defense Ministry. I am sure we all understand that the allegation about the videotapes in the caches is false," he told journalists in Gori on June 23.
He also said that torture and abuse were not routine or accepted treatment in law enforcement agencies. It was possible that some isolated cases of torture had occurred, he said, in which case, the people responsible must be punished.
