There was pressure on the President, no wonder she did not give a reason for the pardon - Papuashvili on Nika Gvaramia

The Speaker of the Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, responds to the release from prison of the director general of "Mtavari Channel ", Nika Gvaramia, and says that there was pressure on the president regarding the pardon. According to him, it is no coincidence that Zurabishvili did not name the reason for the pardon.

According to Papuashvili, naming the real motives for the pardon would be difficult.

"As for the pardon, we could see that there was a lot of pressure on the President regarding this pardon, it obviously was both overt and covert. We hoped that the President would stand on the side of the rule of law and the justice carried out by the Georgian people, but she has chosen another side and made this decision . One thing is important, every decision has its motivation, and it is probably not a coincidence that yesterday the President did not name the motive for her decision. Of course, this motive could not have been that she pardoned because the sentence was illegal, since the courts of three instances of Georgia have made the decision regarding the case, of course, she could not name humanity as a motive, because the convict himself did not ask for pardon, and of course, she could not name depolarization as a reason, since it would be the height of cynicism to tell the population of Georgia that the motive for this was depolarization, let's see , let's take the decision the way it is, time will judge everything," Papuashvili said.

According to Papuashvili, now all those who called for Salome Zurabishvili's pardon and said that this step was necessary for depolarization are responsible, including foreign partners:

"All those who called on the President to pardon Nika Gvaramia, since this was a step towards depolarization and thus made the wrong judgement on the issue of integration with the European Union, of course, all these people take responsibility that after this step there should be depolarization and let's see, if it was the reason for the polarization from the opposition, because they thought that this decision was unfair. Now that Nika Gvaramia has been pardoned, it turns out that the ball is in the opposition's side. There were people from abroad who were involved in this, who called on thePresident to pardon him, now let them take responsibility and let's see to what extent the opposition will change its own radical agenda" - said Papuashvili.

For information, on June 22, President Salome Zurabishvili announced that she pardoned Nika Gvaramia, the Director General of "Mtavari Channel". He spent more than a year in prison. Nika Gvaramia left Rustavi prison at night. Dozens of fans were waiting for him at the prison and in the "Mtavari Channel".