Former senior official in the Special Tasks Department reportedly leaves Georgia

Irakli Shaishmelashvili, a former senior official in the Special Tasks Department who resigned on 4 December, following the government crackdown on street demonstrations in protest of the halting of Georgia’s EU membership bid, has announced on Facebook that he was leaving the country.

Under a photo purportedly taken with his family at Tbilisi Airport, Shaishmelashvili expressed gratitude to Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, the US Embassy in Georgia, and Giorgi Chikvaidze, a Georgian businessman who has recently voiced criticism of the government. He also thanked everyone unknown to him who had supported and helped him, adding at the end: ‘I hope I will have the opportunity to repay this respect in a worthy manner’.