Sozar Subari, the Public Defender, said his source of information about the November 4, 2007 meeting in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was one of the senior official attending that meeting.

Speaking in the public TV’s political program, First Topic, late on December 30, Subari said that person still held a senior position, but declined to speak on further details of the matter. He reiterated that he would hand over all the information available to a parliamentary investigative commission if such would be set up.

He said that another option would be to make evidence, which he possesses about that meeting public. “But in that case it will be harder to confirm that such meeting took place,” Subari said and added that the parliamentary investigative commission has enough powers at its disposal to probe and find out the truth.

Earlier on December 30 Subari told the Parliament while presenting his bi-annual report on the human rights situation in the country that he had proofs confirming that senior officials, including Interior Minister, Vano Merabishvili, deliberately planned to break up anti-governmental demonstration with use of excessive force on November 7, 2007.

He has claimed that the plan was discussed at a meeting in the Interior Ministry, which was held on November 4 and which was attended by “many senior officials.” Subari, however, named only four persons who attended that alleged meeting: Vano Merabishvili, the interior minister; Zurab Adeishvili, now justice minister and at that time a chief prosecutor; Davit Kezerashvili, then-defense minister and former head of the Interior Ministry’s Department for Constitutional Security, Data Akhalaia. Subari told the public TV that President Saakashvili was not present at that meeting.

In the same TV program, Subari has again confirmed having plans of going into politics, but did not specify when he was intending to take that move. “Now I am a Public Defender and I am not crossing that line in my statements,” he added. He also said that he had started thinking about going into politics after the August war.