It is with great sadness and an unyielding sense of injustice that I announce my forced departure from Georgia,- Giorgi Bachaishvili, the former head of Bidzina Ivanishvili's co-investment fund and currently involved in a legal dispute with Ivanishvili, published a post under this title on his personal Facebook page.
"Leaving one’s homeland is never a choice made lightly. While Ivanishvili’s criminal plan was clear to me from the very beginning, I still chose to take a great risk and fully expose him to the Georgian people. Therefore, my departure is not an act of retreat but one of necessity when faced with a regime that has entirely abandoned the principles of justice and democracy.
The latest fabricated charges against me, coupled with a trial that is nothing more than a grotesque performance dictated and staged by the sanctioned Ivanishvili and his sanctioned criminal gang including Judge George Gelashvili, court heads Mikheil Chinchaladze and Levan Murusidze, Prosecutor General Giorgi Gabitashvili, and soon-to-be-sanctioned prosecutor Mikheil Sadradze — make it clear that there is no rule of law left in Georgia. Every actor in this political persecution and extortion has been sanctioned by at least one government of the civilized world. This is not a legal system where truth prevails, nor one where rights are protected—especially for those like me who have been deliberately targeted by Bidzina Ivanishvili and his corrupt machinery.
Furthermore, I have received credible information regarding threats to my safety—threats that, in today’s Georgia, carry deadly weight. In prison, I would be left absolutely defenseless, face to face with Ivanishvili’s executioners… in the very prison where Ivanishvili threatened to crush me.
I stand unwavering in solidarity with the countless Georgians who are unlawfully oppressed and imprisoned by this illegitimate regime and with those who fight for our country’s freedom and democracy. My decision to leave is not an act of surrender but a strategic one—I can contribute far more to this battle from outside a prison cell than within one. Tragically, that choice does not exist for the vast majority suffering under this tyranny.
We will not be silenced, we will not be broken and we will not stop, because we have something they never will—we have love", - Giorgi Bachiashvili writes.
