Tycoon’s Death Dominates Georgian and Russian Media

Below is a round-up of coverage and comment in the Georgian and Russian media on the death in the UK of exiled Georgian billionaire and leading opposition figure Badri Patarkatsishvili. Mr Patarkatsishvili died suddenly at his home south of London on 12 February. According to initial post mortem tests released by British police on 14 February, he died of natural causes. The police added that extensive toxological tests on the body are to take place, and could take several weeks.

GEORGIAN TV

Badri Patarkatsishvili’s death in the UK late on 12 February dominated Georgian TV coverage on 13 February, with the story leading off all the news bulletins of the three nationwide TV networks since the story broke at approximately 0700 gmt.

Private Rustavi-2 and Mze TV and Georgia’s public broadcaster Channel One TV each had correspondents reporting live from outside the Tbilisi home of Patarkatsishvili’s sister, where throughout the day political allies, opposition figures and former journalists from Patarkatsishvili’s Imedi TV, as well as friends and family members of the tycoon, commented to the media after paying their respects.

Many prominent politicians and public figures – among them Georgia’s former foreign minister and opposition leader Salome Zourabichvili – said the unexpected death gave rise to suspicion, and several directly accused the Georgian authorities of responsibility.

All three TV companies provided extensive coverage of the event in their flagship evening news bulletins with Rustavi-2, Mze and the Public Broadcaster devoting the first 20, 29 and 26 minutes of their hour-long broadcasts to the story.

The aftermath of Patarkatsishvili’s death remained the primary focus of Georgian TV channels’ news coverage on 14 February.

Private pro-government leaning stations Rustavi-2 and Mze and the Public Broadcaster relied mainly on information from British sources in their reporting, concentrating on the fact that a police investigation had found no traces of radioactive materials at Patarkatsishvili’s villa in Leatherhead and that the initial results of a post mortem showed no evidence of foul play. Rustavi-2 began its mid-afternoon (1100 gmt) bulletin with the words: “Scotland Yard’s new conclusion – Badri Patarkatsishvili died of natural causes.”

Each TV station had correspondents stationed outside the Tbilisi home of Patarkatsishvili’s sister where, as on 13 February, political allies, family members and opposition politicians paid their respects and later commented on the incident.

Opposition New Right MP Pikria Chikhradze and Gocha Jojua, the head of the Our Georgia parliamentary faction, which is allied with Patarkatsishvili, appeared to accept the official cause of death, though they said the government was to blame for causing him the stress that resulted in the heart attack.

“A victim of the revolting slander campaign that was launched against him. What difference does it make how they killed him, whether they did it physically or indirectly, through words,” Jojua said.

“If he did indeed die because of heart problems, then there were very serious political and moral reasons,” Chikhradze said.

One outspoken opposition figure, opposition MP Kakha Kukava, however, interviewed in parliament in Rustavi-2′s 1100 gmt bulletin, expressed his doubts that British law-enforcement would investigate Patarkatsishvili’s death objectively. “I cannot say I fully trust Scotland Yard’s investigation. They don’t even trust Scotland Yard’s investigations in England. They are still investigating Princess Diana’s case. We all trust only our own eyes.”

In their earlier bulletins, TV channels also noted that President Mikheil Saakashvili had posted a short statement on his official website expressing his regret at Patarkatsishvili’s passing while later broadcasts featured Parliament Speaker Nino Burjanadze saying: “it is always a tragedy when someone dies” and extending her condolences to Patarkatsishvili’s wife and mother, whom she said she knows personally.

The three TV stations also reported that three of Patarkatsishvili’s allies, current opposition leader Goga Khaindrava and former officials in the government of former President Eduard Shevardnadze, Vano Chkhartishvili and Vazha Lortkipanidze, travelled to London to arrange the transport of his remains to Georgia, where they are expected to be laid to rest in the coming days.

GEORGIAN PRESS

There was intense speculation in Georgian newspapers on 14 February about how exactly Patarkatsishvili died, and much comment on the potential political fallout of his death. ‘Whose victim was Patarkatsishvili?’ one paper asked – reflecting the opinion of some opposition leaders who have already alleged that the tycoon was murdered.

“It was a political assassination regardless of whether they actually shot him or not… This government had attacked him in a dirty way,” said political analyst Ramaz Klimiashvili, quoted in independent newspaper Alia. “This incident will certainly radicalize the public opinion because the people will never believe that Badri was not murdered. We Georgians are fond of conspiracy theories,” he added.

Political analyst Soso Tsintsadze, quoted in the same paper, believed “there is a 90-per-cent chance that the expert will identify a heart attack as the cause of his death.” He added: “No- one is so foolish as to rule out the possibility that he was poisoned but, from a pragmatic point of view, Patarkatsishvili’s death is the worst thing that could have happened to our government… The political situation will become more difficult for the government.”

Writing in independent daily Akhali Taoba, Giorgi Udzilauri made the same point. “Patarkatsishvili is no longer alive but this does not mean that he is no longer a problem for Saakashvili’s ‘Rose Regime’”, he wrote. Udzilauri asserted that the government had reasons to target the businessmen, emphasizing that Patarkatsishvili’s decision to sponsor the opposition “had turned the most dangerous forces of the regime into his enemies.” The tycoon’s “strange death”, he added, “will prompt quite significant changes in Georgia as the number of people who fight against the tyranny will increase.”

Paata Zakareishvili, a political analyst affiliated with the opposition Republican Party, told independent daily Rezonansi that although he believed Patarkatsishvili died of natural causes, “it was the propaganda that caused the man’s death. His heart could not bear the terrible things that the government did to him.” Zakareishvili added: “The people of Georgia who are to vote in an election soon should know what kind of an evil government they have and how this government fights against its opponents.”

RUSSIAN TV

Patarkatsishvili’s death was the lead story on all the main Russian TV networks on 13 February. State-controlled Channel One devoted about a third of its flagship “Vremya” programme to a series of reports questioning initial indications that Patarkatsishvili had died from natural causes.

“Suspicious” death

All the main Russian channels agreed that Patarkatsishvili’s death was “suspicious”, most of them strongly suggesting foul play on the part of the Georgian authorities. Some of the channels noted Patarkatsishvili’s close relationship with exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovskiy.

Giorgi Targamadze, former head of news at Patarkatsishvili’s TV station Imedi and now leader of a Georgian opposition party, appeared on primetime bulletins saying that his ex-boss had been in good health shortly before his death. He said Patarkatsishvili had told him that he had received a clean bill of health during a recent medical check-up. Various other Patarkatsishvili supporters were also shown saying that he had never complained of heart problems.

State-controlled Channel One led the field in alleging that the Georgian authorities may have been responsible for the death of their formidable opponent, whom they had accused of plotting a coup. In its “Vremya” programme, Channel One recalled that in 2005, the then Georgian prime minister, Zurab Zhvania, who was widely seen as President Mikheil Saakashvili’s rival, also died in unclear circumstances. One of the leaders of the Georgian Labour Party, Nestan Kirtadze, was interviewed, accusing Saakashvili of Patarkatsishvili’s “assassination”.

Duma member Andrey Lugovoy, wanted in the UK on charges of murdering Aleksandr Litvinenko in 2006, also appeared in one of the reports. Lugovoy, who, according to Channel One, “in the past consulted Patarkatsishvili on security issues”, recalled advising Patarkatsishvili two years ago to tighten security around him because of an emerging “conflict” with Saakashvili.

Channel One also mentioned an article in Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper last December based on an audio tape of a telephone conversation in which a man said to be a Georgian official was suggesting to another man, allegedly a Chechen warlord, that Patarkatsishvili should be killed. Patarkatsishvili had claimed that the recording, which he had supplied to the newspaper himself, contained evidence of the Georgian authorities plotting his assassination.

An excerpt from this recording, which is available for download on the Sunday Times website, was played on air by Mikhail Leontyev in his regular “Odnako” slot at the end of the “Vremya” programme. Leontyev also quoted former Georgian Defence Minister Irakli Okruashvili as saying that Saakashvili had been involved in “contract killings” and that he had asked Okruashvili “to blow up Patarkatsishvili’s car”.

Leontyev dismissed suggestions by some Georgian opposition politicians that Patarkatsishvili’s health my have been undermined by the authorities’ campaign against him. “Patarkatsishvili’s doctors say that he was in perfect health and did not suffer from any cardiovascular diseases… Talk that Badri Shalvovich [Patarkatsishvili] succumbed to the Saakashvili regime’s smear campaign is ridiculous. He was completely immune to that,” Leontyev said.

He went on to claim that Patarkatsishvili’s heart attack could have been caused by some unspecified poison and that, in contrast with Litvinenko’s death, the British authorities might not be particularly keen to investigate the case thoroughly. “Preparations that can cause a sudden heart attack without leaving many traces, especially if there is no special desire to detect them, are widely known. This is no fictional polonium,” he said.

Corporate-owned Ren TV focused on the Georgian government’s possible involvement. It claimed that a month ago visiting Georgian investigators unsuccessfully tried to persuade the British authorities to get Patarkatsishvili extradited to Georgia. The Ren TV report featured an interview with a Patarkatsishvili supporter accusing the Georgian authorities of “murder” as well as remarks by a deputy head of the Russian Duma security committee, Vladimir Kolesnikov, who said that Patarkatsishvili had been anticipating “physical violence” from members of Georgian special services.

None of the primetime bulletins carried remarks, broadcast earlier in the day, by another deputy head of the Duma security committee, Gennadiy Gudkov, who said that he did not believe the Georgian authorities had anything to do with Patarkatsishvili’s death.

RUSSIAN PRESS

Russian papers on 14 February were full of speculation about the possible causes and consequences of Patarkatsishvili’s death, and many highlighted its potentially sinister aspects.

“A sudden death of the 52-year-old businessman and politician, who was full of strength and energy, looks quite strange,” said an article in Moskovskiy Komsomolets. “But,” it added, “for [Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili, the death of his main and most powerful opponent is very timely… It is no secret that certain foreign circles are trying to prevent Saakashvili from being ousted from office. It cannot ruled out that they decided to help him a little by eliminating his main opponent.”

“The death of Patarkatsishvili was so sudden that many people are simply refusing to believe that it was due to natural causes”, wrote Vladimir Demchenko in pro-Kremlin daily Izvestiya. “Almost everyone in Tbilisi is saying that the Georgian authorities will benefit from Patarkatsishvili’s death,” he said.

Demchenko was quick to dismiss any speculation about Russian involvement in the death. “Foreign journalists will likely decide that the Russian special services had something to do with it. But, as in the Litvinenko case, the Russian authorities did not have any motive whatsoever. Neither of them knew any secrets or posed any threat. In his latter days, Badri became more of an ally of Moscow in the fight against Saakashvili’s regime in Georgia,” he added.

Centrist daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta said people in Tbilisi “do not rule out that the businessman’s death could have been the result of an operation by the Georgian authorities”, and it highlighted comments by Georgian opposition figures who claim the businessman was murdered. Gazeta recalled that “at the end of last year Patarkatsishvili said that an attempt on his life was being prepared: according to the businessman, four contract killers had arrived in London. He saw the threat as coming from the Georgian authorities.”

Papers highlighted the dead man’s links with exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovskiy. “Tycoon Boris Berezovskiy has suddenly lost his right-hand man,” said an article in Moskovskiy Komsomolets.

Left-leaning daily Trud quoted from the blog of well-known journalist Sergey Dorenko, who wrote: “He was Berezovskiy’s friend. More than a friend. More than a brother. I fear for Boris: [the death of] Litvinenko was a blow, but [the death of] Badri is a blow that is far more powerful.”

Originally published by as listed.

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