16:08, 19 December 2003

Calls to launch criminal case against Eduard Shevardnadze made in Georgia

The All-Georgian Association for the Defense of Human Rights is demanding that a criminal case be initiated against former Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze.

"Shevardnadze must bear responsibility for the crimes he has committed," Georgy Kervalishvili, president of the Association, told journalists during a rally in front of the Georgian Prosecutor General's Office on December 18.

"During his office as president, Shevardnadze committed many crimes, including the dispersal of a peaceful demonstration in Tbilisi on April 9, 1989 [in which many people were killed], the liquidation of former president Zviad Gamsakhurdia and politically-motivated killings," Kervalishvili said.

The Association filed a suit with the Georgian Prosecutor General's Office, which is to be considered within a month.

"Today's rally is a warning protest. But if the Prosecutor General's Office does not satisfy the demand to initiate a criminal case [against Shevardnadze], protests will become massive," he said.

Source: Interfax News Agency