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Leading Georgian journalists havew renewed their calls for the return of the Imedi broadcasting company to the family of the late Badri Patarkatsishvili.

The journalists were commenting to Georgian Times about Joseph Kay (real name Ioseb Kakiashvili) who claimed to have been made executor of Patarkatsishvili's estate on his sudden death in early 2008. Kay subsequently sold a controling interest in Imedi to Arab investors who have ensured it faithfully broadcasts pro-regime propaganda.

Imedi was closed down at gunpoint in November 2007 (the video shows its last minutes on air) after it broadcast pictures of Georgian police and special forces attacking peacful demonstrators in the centre of Tbilisi. Mikheil Saakashvili declared a state of emergency and took complete control of the country's broadcasting system, claiming Imedi had been involved in organising a coup.

Now it's director-general is Giorgi Arveladze, the man who, as one of Mikheil Saakashvili's ministers, made the announcement of the state of emergency. Under Arveladze the station has become the most extreme defender of the regime - even going so far as to attack the Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church.

In the Georgian Times article, Lasha Tugushi, editor of the respected Rezonansi newspaper says of Kay:

"In general I do not like to make personal comments about people and neither can I say for sure who is standing behind him. I have no idea what kind of interests he has. But the thing I can say for sure is that that Imedi TV must be returned to Badri Patarkatsishvili’s family."