Georgian police raid homes of senior former officials

TBILISI, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Georgian police conducted searches on Friday at the homes of three former senior officials as authorities clamp down on figures accused of trying to overthrow the government. In a statement, the prosecutor general said law enforcement had raided the homes of Irakli Garibashvili, a two-time former prime minister; Grigol Liluashvili, a former internal security chief; and Otar Partskhaladze, an ex-prosecutor general. All have been close allies of Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire former prime minister and founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party, widely seen as the de facto leader of the South Caucasus country. Electronic devices, documents and a large amount of cash were seized, the Interpress news agency cited the prosecutor general as saying. The authorities have alleged that a plot to overthrow the government lies behind a series of opposition rallies that began a year ago when Georgian Dream won a parliamentary election that its critics say was fraudulent. A total of 62 people have been arrested since a large rally two weeks ago, authorities said on Friday. Partskhaladze, who is a dual Georgian-Russian citizen, was sanctioned by Britain last month for links to Moscow. Garibashvili, who last served as prime minister from 2021 to 2024, largely spearheaded Tbilisi's anti-Western turn since the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine. In a speech in Bratislava in May 2023, Garibashvili said that the enlargement of the transatlantic NATO alliance was to blame for Russia's invasion. Georgia, which fought a brief war with Russia in 2008, had previously been one of the most pro-Western countries to emerge from the ashes of the Soviet Union, with aspirations to join the European Union. In the lead-up to a municipal election this month, Georgian Dream accused the EU ambassador of expressing support for an attempt to seize power. Brussels accused Tbilisi of disinformation. (Reporting by Lucy Papachristou and Felix Light; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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