Ombudsman of Georgia: the volume and content of leaked documents shocked me

Public Defender of Georgia commented on illegal surveillance

Public Defender of Georgia Nino Lomjaria claims that the documents of the alleged “wiretapping” of the special services, leaked to the media, confirm that there is a total surveillance in the country.

According to her, she found herself on these records and confirms the fact of the conversation, which is in the materials. Lomjaria announced this to the Palitranews TV company.

According to the Public Defender, the purpose of the wiretapping is probably to control people using the collected materials:

“The goal may be to have information about each person, their weakest points or connections, and, if necessary, they will use it for political purposes”.

“We live in a terrible country. I could not imagine this kind of control, the extent of which I cannot even imagine”; said Nino Lomjaria.

According to the Ombudsman, these documents confirm the total nature of the wiretapping, “because we are not talking about 10-20-30 people, we are talking about hundreds of people and persons associated with them”.

• ‘State insecurity services’ – Georgian clerics comment on the alleged surveillance on the Church
• Georgian media outlets: intelligence services spy on church leaders and even nuns

On September 13, the media in Georgia announced receiving of secret files, from which it became known that the state security service was listening and watching the members of the synod, the patriarch, his assistants, bishops, priests, nuns, as well as active supporters of all of the above.

As it turned out, special services control the movement of clergymen, their bank transfers and personal life. Thousands of files also contain information about the people through whom this or that clergy could have been recruited. The documents contain information about priests who use drugs or are friends with criminals.

The files also say that during the operational work, 36 priests of non-traditional sexual orientation, 23 clergy (including monks) who had sexual relations with women, and 21 clergy who used drugs were identified.

Later it became known that the State Security Service was directly eavesdropping on both the embassy staff and the ambassadors themselves. We are talking about after the EU Carl Hartzell and ambassador of Israel Ran Gidor, as well as the employees of the US Embassy.

The European Union has already reacted to this fact. MEP Maria Kaljurand said that espionage has no place in a democratic country. According to Georgian experts and politicians, the European Union will introduce specific sanctions against Georgia.

The authenticity of the materials has yet been confirmed at this stage.