TBILISI, DFWatch – A former bodyguard for the Georgian opposition leader has been reported missing by his relatives, after a video was uploaded to Youtube yesterday, in which he says that Georgian Dream leader Bidzina Ivanishvili personally instructed him to make secret recordings of other coalition members.
The video looks like a personal appeal and features Beso Surmava, a former personal bodyguard for Bidzina Ivanishvili, speaking in a monotonous voice, his eyes jerking slightly left and right as if he is reading from a teleprompter. After it was published on Youtube Thursday it was followed by a number of other secret video and audio recordings containing compromising revelations for both government and opposition representatives. The leaks are termed a war of compromats in social networks.
Friday morning, Surmava’s wife and brother-in-law stated that they suspect he may have been kidnapped, and the two asked the Public Defender for help.
But the story didn’t end there, as new files appeared on the same Youtube account as Surmava had appeared on. These clips were secret audio recordings of conversations between Georgian Dream coalition members.
In those conversations coalition members discuss other members of Georgian Dream. Some of them are cursing and swearing while discussing the internal situation in the coalition.
Maka Lobzhanidze, Surmava’s spouse, says her husband disappeared on Thursday, shortly after the first videos were posted. She only spoke with him by phone twice.
Lobzhanidze also claims that videos posted on Thursday were a fabrication, as her husband didn’t make secret recordings, didn’t even have access to it.
“He is under pressure, he is threatened and so is inadequate. He called a couple of times by phone. I spoke to him. He speaks absurd, speaks not sober,” she said on Friday at Georgian Dream’s central office.
Surmava has worked ten years for Bidzina Ivanishvili’s personal guard.
Meanwhile, the businessman responded to those recordings by saying that even if they haven’t been edited, there is nothing catastrophic in those material.
The coalition leader said on TV 9 Friday that his security service is in shock and suspecting that this is a new trick by the government.
“When it comes to the recordings, Surmava has nothing to do with them. This is typical – they listen to everyone and record them. This is the government’s combination to create hostility among team members.”
The interior ministry doesn’t have any information about Surmava’s disappearance at the moment.
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