Prosecutor’s Office refuses to release materials on archpriest convicted for attempted murder
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Thursday, February 28
The Georgian Prosecutor’s Office has responded to the Georgian Patriarchate and rejected the appeal to publicize the materials related to Archpriest Giorgi Mamaladze, who was sent to prison for nine years in 2017 for attempted murder.
The Georgian Patriarchate asked the main investigation body to make the materials public as the church was being attacked because of the case.
The Patriarchate says that lawyers and some church persons raise the issue of Mamaladze’s pardoning before Catholics-Patriarch Ilia II, ‘but the request is accompanied by misinformation, slander and menacing’.
“Such an illogical move generates the suspicion that the development of events has a certain purpose and in fact, Mamaladze’s case is used for continuation of a campaign targeted against the Georgian church. Unfortunately, Mamaladze and his family members became co-participants of this discrediting campaign. Everyone knows that if the convict asks for pardoning and admits to the guilt, the Patriarchate will make the plea,” reads the statement.
The archpriest’s brother says that his brother is innocent and he will not admit to the crime.
The family and relatives are still protesting against the verdict and claim that certain clerics do not want Mamaladze to leave the prison alive.
A couple of days ago Mamaladze was hospitalized due to the severe heart-related problems.
In early February of 2017, Georgia’s Chief Prosecutor’s Office announced that they had detained archpriest Giorgi Mamaladze, the deputy head of the Patriarchate’s Property Management Service and Director General of the Patriarchate’s medical center, at Tbilisi International Airport, from where he intended to depart for Germany on February 10.
At that time the Patriarch was in Germany, where he was operated on for bladder-related complications.
Then Chief Prosecutor Irakli Shotadze said that Mamaladze had attempted to acquire cyanide, and the man from whom he tried to receive the substance (journalist Irakli Mamaladze, the detained archpriest’s close friend and relative) informed the police that the archpriest intended to kill a “high ranking spiritual figure.”
The Office did not say that the person whose murder was allegedly planned was necessarily the Patriarch. However, the Office’s silence for several days and unconfirmed information generated speculation that the target was Patriarch Ilia.
Suspicion grew when then Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili stated that the country had “avoided a huge tragedy.”
Only after several days did the Office state that the alleged target was the Patriarch’s female secretary Shorena Tetruashvili, and also released video footage in which Mamaladze spoke about Tetruashvili in a negative context.
He is also heard to say that Tetruashvili is an influential figure in the patriarchate who represents an obstacle for his career.
Mamaladze’s lawyers and family claim the man is innocent and the footage was fabricated.
Some members of the church claim that Mamaladze knew about various financial and property-related violations within the church, which is why he was “trapped by some people involved in illegalities.”
They named Patriarch’s secretary Tetruashvili as “the main wrongdoer.”
