Robin Llewellyn has interviewed celebrated Georgian investigative journalist Vakhtang Komakhidze. We have reprinted some extended extracts below, under Open Democracy's creative commons licence terms, but we do recommend you read the whole thing.

Shevardnadze lost power to Saakashvili in the Rose Revolution of November 2003, heralding a period of struggle between Tbilisi and Aslan Abashidze, the regional leader of Adjara. On 5 March 2004 Komakhidze was investigating corruption in the regional government and was stopped by the police at a checkpoint, allowing a team of men to beat him and take his camera and materials. ‘60 Minutes’ did not just unnerve the Adjaran authorities, however; it was discontinued soon afterwards. This hit Vakhtang hard: “We had made many movies, every Georgian knows ‘60 Minutes’, and it was our job… Four or five years later Erosi Kitsmarishvili, then the owner of Rustavi 2, gave an interview saying Saakashvili had asked him in 2003 to close the programme because he did not want ‘60 Minutes’ looking into his business and scrutinising the government’s activities.”

The closure of the programme left Vakhtang searching for work in newspapers and on TV, without success. “Then Zurab Adeishvili called me,” he said. “At that time he was the Minister of State Security, ‘like the KGB’, with Giorgi Ugulava (now the mayor of Tbilisi) as his deputy. They said ‘Leave 60 Minutes and come with us, we want to build a new Georgia and we need you here… you can make everything you want and have money for projects.’ I told them ‘No, I don’t want to be in the KGB.’” He claims that his resolve was sapped as no opportunities in the media emerged. He eventually took the position in a unit dealing with high-priority investigations. “Two months I was there, two months and fifteen days.”

During that time, he says, he soon found himself in conflict with his bosses: “I said if I am running this department, show me the case of Giorgi Sanaia, the journalist who was killed in 2002. Nobody believed he was killed by criminals - he was the most famous journalist and had a lot of interesting material. But Adeishvili told me ‘No, we don’t need to look back, you must look forward; leave that case - it’s of no interest now.’ I asked to work on Ossetian materials: I wrote a long document about things that could be done to improve relations with the Ossetians and to make changes in Georgian-Ossetian politics, but this too was refused. They said ‘Don’t go there.’ …They gave me a good post, a good office, good wages, but they told me ‘Stop! You can have as much money as you need. Just don’t make problems’.”

He alleges that things came to a head with Data Akhalaia (the head of the Department of Constitutional Security, brother of current Defence Minister Bacho Akhalaia). “Data worked in the KGB at that time. He came into my room when I was questioning a criminal and beat him, not once , but 4 or 5 times. I shouted ‘What are you doing, coming into my room when I am talking to him?’ Very soon afterwards I found video materials of Akhalaia with his team: they had arrested a citizen, tortured and beaten him. They had videoed it, but they didn’t understand video technology, so when they realised they didn’t need the material they didn’t delete it. I went into the office of Giorgi Ugulava and showed him this material. I said ‘Look. Now what? I can’t work here if this guy is there. You must take a decision: it’s either him or me.’ I explained this to Givi Targamadze, the head of the parliamentary committee. Then I waited a week. When there was no answer, I left my office.”

In January 2005 he set up the Reportiori Studio, and in May published its first documentary, about the death of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania who had died in February that year - officially due to carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty heater. ‘Without a Bullet’ listed the inconsistencies in a case that has now received widespread attention. It also examined the 21 May 2005 murder of Levan Samkharauli, the director of the Forensic Expert Bureau which had examined the heater. His killer was then reported to have committed suicide (dying from two bullet wounds – one to the head, and one to the heart). Releasing the film was not easy, Vakhtang says. At first, Giorgi Targamadze – the anchor of Imedi who would later have his show closed down on air by armed men from the interior ministry, refused to show it; only when Komakhidze had shown it in the open air to a crowd of 10,000 did Imedi change their mind.

The public was shocked, according to Vakhtang. In the early days of the Saakashvili era the public attitude to the administration was that it was “looking to democracy, as nice boys”, as he puts it. While the film does not directly blame anyone for Zhvania’s death, after that the public came to suspect the authorities. He followed that film with an investigation into the murder of teenage student Buta Robakidze by the police, whose parents had been campaigning for answers about his death. Vakhtang took their complaints and consulted experts who again showed inconsistencies in the official version – the trajectory of the bullets proved the victim had had his hands in the air. Again the film was first shown independently, at Cinema House, before it was broadcast.

Komakhidze’s work gained international recognition when he produced a film deconstructing the claim that ethnic Georgian voters in Khurcha had been fired on by Abkhazian forces. By viewing existing footage in slow motion, and interviewing women who had been present, he showed that the attacks were almost certainly carried out by Georgian forces. This material was damning enough for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to demand a response from Tbilisi, which was not forthcoming.
 

Angry refugees have accused Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava of breaking pre-election promises about their future living conditions. The refugees have been evicted from Isani hospital despite reassurances from Ugulava that they would be satisfied by their living conditions, during a visit he made before the election. Without warning, 12 families from Abkhazia have been forced to empty the hospital. The refugees now have nowhere else to go.

Further protests against the treatment of refugees still continue across Tbilisi. Yesterday frustrated protesters outside the Presidential Palace turned their anger on an official from the Ministry of IDPs and Refugees. The official who appeared during the protests was jeered by both IDPs and street traders as they continue to call for the protection of their rights.

Local actions of street traders will also be held at different market places from today. As the organiser of the protest, Conservative Lasha Chkhartishvili said, the local actions are aimed at preparing for larger action taking place on 19 August. Street traders and refugees will then hold a procession from Avlabari Residence of the President to Tbilisi City Hall. A ‘professional league of street traders’ will be set up, all street traders will be able to register to this.
 

Yesterday's poll from the National Democratic Institute, showing little support for the president's plan to change the constitution to allow him to stay on in power, will have worried the pro-Saakashvili faction inside the ruling party, not least because it reportedly showed that the champion of the "liberal" wing in the ruling bloc, Tbilisi mayor Gigi Ugulava, is a more popular and trusted figure.

But there would be another loser if Misha's plan to stay on in office fails - his old univeristy friend Levan Varshalomidze, the current head of government in the nominally autonomous republic of Adjara.

According to several press reports Varshalomidze is being lined up by Saakashvili to succeed him as president undetr the proposed new constitutional dispensation. Under these proposals the role of president will be diminished to little more than a ceremonial head of state.

Varshalomiodze seems well suited for such a post - as chief of government in Adjara he cuts almost no impression at all and is actually little more than Saakashvili's vice-regent. Certainly Adjara offers no comfort to anyone hoping the Georgian state can improve the chances of national reintegration by showing the Abkhaz and Ossetians that pluralism can flourish inside a unified state. A recent row about his lack of power seems to have been resolved in the favour of the centre of Tbilisi and nothing more has been heard of his demands for more power in Batumi.

Varshalmodize is not just an old friend with Saakashvili: he appears to have once been a business part of Zurab Noghaideli - Saakashvili's longest serving prime minister and now a pro-Moscow opponent of the president. Ironically the liberals in the ruling party accuse Saakashvili and his chief lieutenant, interior minister Vano Merabishvili, of sharing the same fundamental orientation - even if there is clearly no hope of a rapproachement with the Kremlin given the current leadership on either side. 

The Georgian government's latest official letter to the International Monetary Fund asking for additional financial support shows the regime spent $150 million in April and May on propping up the Georgian Lari ahead of the 30 May elections - only stopping the support once the polls had closed.

The ruling party won the local elections handsomely, with United National Movement mayoral candidate Gigi Ugulava polling 55% in Tbilisi, the centre of most opposition votes.

Once the support was withdrawn the Georgian currency plunged nearly 5% in just a few days, prompting concern abouit inflation and protests about the rising price of goods in the shops. If the devaluation had taken place in the days leading up to the polls it could have affected the results.

The Geogian letter - signed by Prime Minister, Nika Gilauri, the Finance Minister and the Central Bank Governor states:

Seasonal exchange market pressures continued after March. In anticipation that these
pressures would be reversed after the May 30 elections, the NBG increased its intervention in
April-May to USD 150 million. However, the persistence of pressures points to weakness in
FDI inflows in the first half of the year, which has led to a downward revision of projected
FDI inflows for the year. The exchange rate (vis-à-vis the USD) has depreciated by 4.6
percent in the first 9 days of June, and by 10.2 cumulatively since the beginning of the year.
Intervention volumes remained elevated in the first ten days of June because of the need to
stabilize market expectations, but the foreign exchange market has since stabilized.

An appeal by ten opposition parties - ranging from the parliamentary Christian Democrats to the "radical" Conservative Party - to slow down the pace of constitutional change in Georgi looks set to be rejected as the country's constitutional commission meet to finalise their proposals to President Saakashvili.

The Commission's draft proposals - adopted in the Spring - to create a strong prime ministership and a much weakened presidency were seen as a big victory for Saakashvili's faction inside the ruling party: as the president is term limited to two terms as president, maintaining a strong presidency would damage his supporters' hopes - which most assume he shares - of a continued leading role in Georgian politics when his presidential term ends in 2013.

Supporters of the supposedly "modernising" faction round Gigi Ugulava and the libertarian Liberty Institute were said to favour a continued strong executive presidency, if balanced with a marginally more powerful parliament.

Opposition parties are calling for the proposals to be given further consideration. They are motivated by a desire to seek Saakashvili retire, gracefully or otherwise, in 2013 or sooner. But most have also argued, in the past, for a stronger role for parliament.

Even today, though, parliament has many powers it refuses to use and is often seen as little more than an echo chamber for the president's regime. A stronger parliament on paper may mean nothing if none of that changes.