Ex-defense minister, Irakli Okruashvili, said a taped phone conversation, allegedly, between him and Bacho Akhalia, the prison system chief, was made-up.

In the 20-second long audio tape, disseminated through the television stations by the press office of Penitentiary System on November 6, a man said to be Irakli Okruashvili tells Akhalaia he wanted the Prime Minister’s position and in exchanged offered “to disband the protest rally.”

“It is absolutely nonsense even to imagine a person in my position calling Bacho Akhalia and telling him this nonsense,” Okruashvili told Imedi TV’s late-night talk show while speaking from Munich in phone on November 6.

“These are old methods, Misha [referring to Mikheil Saakashvili]. The same method was used to edit phone conversation between Irakli Batiashvili [an opposition politician] and [warlord] Emzar Kvitsiani by Vano Merabishvili [the interior minister]. Do you think someone will believe this?”