The State Security Service of Georgia (SSG) has announced the detention of a political council member of the opposition United National Movement (UNM) party. Lasha Tsanava was accused of deceiving a foreign national seeking to obtain residence, an allegation his party considered a ‘provocation’.
According to a statement released Wednesday by Georgia’s State Security Service (SSG), Tsanava promised a foreign national that, ‘through his connections’, he could secure a one-year Georgian residence permit in exchange for $5,600.
The agency stated that the foreign citizen transferred part of the requested amount to the UNM political council member in May of this year, and in June, following Tsanava’s ‘persistent requests’, gave him another $2,500.
In total, the SSG claimed Tsanava ‘fraudulently obtained’ $2,650 out of the $5,600 he had requested.
The agency also released video and audio recordings it said serve as evidence of the alleged crime.
In the video, an individual whose face was blurred can be seen speaking through an interpreter to another person, discussing payments for obtaining residency and warning that anyone without the proper documentation could face deportation from the country. The footage also showed documents and money being exchanged between two individuals, both with obscured faces.
The audio recording allegedly captured a phone conversation between two people discussing the need to pay for document processing.
The investigation started under fraud charges, which carry a penalty of up to seven years in prison.
The SSG’s statement was addressed the same day by UNM political council chair Levan Khabeishvili, who called the detention a staged ‘provocation’ against Tsanava.
Khabeishvili described the Tsanava as a ‘decent, hard-working man’ who worked tirelessly to support his family and had occasional contact with foreign nationals.
‘If he offered [a foreigner] help with sorting out their documents, how is that a crime? Hundreds of people stand outside the Public Service Hall offering the same kind of assistance’, Khabeishvili wrote on Facebook.
‘But Lasha was targeted by a SSG agent-provocateur and was secretly filmed’, he added.
Khabeishvili further stated that Tsanava is his friend and that he has no intention of ‘hiding from his name’.
Tsanava had previously drawn the attention of investigators last year, when Khabeishvili was the UNM’s chair and Tsanava served as his assistant.
At the time, the Chief Prosecutor’s Office summoned him for questioning over the violent dispersal of a group of activists near Tbilisi’s police headquarters in 2009, during UNM’s time in power.
According to the prosecution, Tsanava was employed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs at the time and took part in the crackdown. That case was being investigated under charges of abuse of power involving violence.
Tsanava was not detained at the time.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
