BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

18/04/2006

Georgian MP Downplays Russian TV Commentator's Accusations

/ Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 2006-04-18 18:16:19

Influential Georgian parliamentarian from the ruling National Movement party Givi Targamadze, who chairs the parliamentary committee for defense and security, denied on April 18 accusations voiced by Russian television commentator that MP Targamadze was plotting the assassination of Belarus opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich, calling the accusation "ridiculous."

A political commentator on the Russian First Channel, journalist Mikhail Leontyev broadcasted in his own television program called "Odnako" (However) on April 17 a taped phone conversation between two men. One of them, whom Leontyev identified as MP Givi Targamadze, expresses his discontent towards Milinkevich for wrapping-up protest rallies in Minks following the March presidential elections there.

"He now tours Europe, making PR for himself," the unknown man says in the phone conversation.

"He now goes to Turin [Italy]. My sister lives there and I will now negotiate with my brother-in-law to kill him [Milinkevich]," the voice, identified by the author of the Odnako program as MP Targamadze, says.

After broadcasting the audio tape of the phone conversation, Leontyev commented "this is how revolutions are staged."

"It is ridiculous: I wont' even make a comment," MP Targamadze told reporters.

MP Davit Gamkrelidze, leader of the opposition New Rights party, said on April 18 that to disavow these "serious accusations" the authorities should carry out "a thorough examination of the taped phone conversation, but not in Georgia."

Host of the Odnako program, which airs on the Russian government-control TV channel, Mikhail Leontyev is known for making scandalous accusations both on his own TV program and in various interviews. In 2001 he accused Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko's wife Kateryna Yushchenko-Chumachenko of influencing his husband's political decisions and hinted that she was a U.S. agent. But Kateryna Yushchenko-Chumachenko won a libel case against Leontyev in 2003.

Source:

http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=12370