Baku-APA. The Georgian prosecutor's office on Tuesday filed one more charge on the detained former prime minister of the South Caucasus country and if convicted the charge is punishable by from five to eight years of imprisonment, APA reports quoting Xinhua.
"On May 26 of 2011, the (then) interior minister Ivane Merabishvili ordered the attack, intimidation, punishment and exertion of psychological pressures on people with different opinions," the prosecutor's office said.
Merabishvili became Georgia's prime minister in July 2012 and resigned in October of the same year.
The former prime minister is now being held for protective pre-trial detention after he was detained last week on charges of embezzlement of state funds and abuse of authorities. A court hearing has been scheduled for July 15.
The prosecutor's office said that Merabishvili's involvement in the attack had been investigated. The attack caused the death of two demonstrators and injuries on 300 others.
The investigation disclosed that Merabishvili was personally involved in the plan and execution of the attack against demonstrators who were rounded up by police forces which had closed up all adjacent streets and alleys connecting to Tbilisi's Rustaveli Avenue where demonstrators had been protesting.
Police forces had to be resorted to, according to the then authorities, to restore social order for next day's Independence Day celebration along the same avenue.
A spokesperson for the prosecutor's office said on Tuesday that Merabishvili had personally planned the move which was not aimed at dispersing the protesters, but instead aimed at rounding up them for arrest, intimidation, punishment and psychological pressures, in contradiction to code for police forces.
Ivane Merabishvili already faces charges of embezzlement and abuse of office, which are punishable by imprisonment of between seven and nine years.
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