An Interior Ministry official has said law enforcement officers were investigating a reported attack and beating of Zurab Giguashvili, an uncle of ex-Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili.

Eka Beselia from the Movement for United Georgia Party – set up by Okruashvili, which is now part of the opposition coalition – said Giguashvili was accosted outside his house in Tbilisi on June 10 by four masked men and taken outside the city where he was beaten and left. He was later hospitalized with multiple injures, including a rib injury. The attackers reportedly took his laptop and mobile phone. Party activists have claimed that it was a politically-motivated attack.

“Following public statements on this incident, law enforcement officers are looking into the case, but I am not now aware at what stage the process is,” Shota Khizanishvili, an Interior Ministry spokesman, told Civil.Ge on June 11.