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Mikheil Saakashvili has arrived in Munich for what is being described as an "official" visit.

It is not clear if this a "state" visit where one head of state hosts another.

The trip to Germany is Saakashvili's first visit abroad since he cut short his trip to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen on 19 December to take charge of the situation after the botched demolition of the "Memorial of Glory" in Kutaisi ended with the deaths of two bystanders - a woman and her eight-year-old daughter.

The demolition of the memorial to those Georgians who died in the war against fascism was controversial from the outset but after the deaths there were scenes of real anger on the streets of Georgia's second city.

Kutaisi, a major industrial centre in Soviet days, has suffered twenty years of poverty and decline since the breakup of the USSR and has not seen the sort of economic upturn of recent years that has helped Tbilisi or Batumi and so has never been high on the list of presidential photocall destinations.

But the regime have always claimed they were demolishing the memorial to make way for a new parliament building that would bring jobs and investment. Opposition figures said it was because the sculptor had supported anti-government protests and because Saakashvili seeks to obliterate too much of Georgia's past.

The demolition was orginally expected on 21 December - the day of the president's birthday. But with the threat of a large protest the order was given - allegedly by the president himself - to bring the demolition forward as a way of rendering public protest pointless.

Since then the president has seemingly been afraid to visit: even meeting a delegation of parliamentarians from Kutaisi not in the city or the capital but in Batumi.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy there was a rush to find people to blame. But there has been no official questioning of the president over the instruction to bring the demolition forward, nor of the police, as the public authority charged with evacuating the public from the vacinity of the explosion.

Instead the regime has locked up officials from the deolition company. But today their lawyer said they had warned against speeding the demolition but had been ordered to proceed.

"The tragedy took place in 275 metres away from the explosion while the patrol police was liable to take the security measures in 300 meters," Temur Gvishiani told the newspaper Kvela Siakhle.

"The detainees are experienced professional 70-year-old people who had been unjustifiably sacrificed to the incident. They have more than 40 years’ length of service and had not even a slight infringement…  When the exploders were told that they should have exploded the memorial [on 19 December] they categorically opposed it – for they could not manage to perform the preparatory works but they seemed to have insisted on 19 December.

"The city hall of Kutaisi notified the exploders the date of the explosion. But it is unclear who had ordered City Hall," he added.