TBILISI, December 8 – A Georgian interior ministry investigation has found that what came out of a police water cannon a year ago was not a World War I era chemical weapon but ordinary tear gas.
The claim that a banned chemical weapon was used originates in a BBC report on December 1, which said Georgian authorities had “likely” used a First World War chemical agent against anti-government protests last year and cited victims, doctors and weapons experts.
The ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party hit back within hours. It announced legal action against the BBC in international courts and said the report relied on “interested parties” and had no link to reality, then prepared a complaint to the British communications regulator.
Opposition groups, however, seized on the unverified claims. The For Georgia faction demanded a parliamentary investigative commission and an international probe based on the BBC material, while the UNM spinoff Federalists opened a hotline to collect evidence for possible international investigations.
On 2 December, former president Salome Zurabishvili wrote to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the UN human rights chief and the Council of Europe human rights commissioner, asking them to examine the possible use of chemical weapons during protests in November and December 2024.
Now, Georgia’s State Security Service says its own investigation has identified the powder bought and used by the Interior Ministry at protests as chlorobenzylidene malononitrile, better known as CS gas, and says the banned agent bromobenzyl cyanide, known as Camit, has never been purchased and “does not exist” in Georgia.
Officials say they carried out more than 160 investigative actions, questioned around 90 people and concluded the ministry acted within the law, while government figures label the BBC report and its Georgian supporters as deliberate disinformation.
