Georgian PM claims NYT Bachiashvili report highlights ‘totally controlled’ Western media

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Wednesday sharply criticised Western media, alleging it was “totally controlled” and heavily censored, in response to a question about a recent New York Times article concerning Giorgi Bachiashvili, the former Head of the Co-Investment Fund, who had previously been sentenced to 11 years in prison in a high-profile case involving the misappropriation of cryptocurrency belonging to Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party.

Speaking to reporters, Kobakhidze asserted that the current climate was making it possible for “any lie to be published, even in what was once a prestigious publication”, adding that this situation in Western media no longer surprises anyone.

“The Western media is so tightly controlled and so heavily censored that publishing any falsehood has become easy. However, for the Georgian public, the truth is clear, and people make their own assessments accordingly”, he concluded.

Teimuraz Tsikvadze, the lawyer of Bidzina Ivanishvili, on Tuesday released a statement regarding an article published in The New York Times, commissioned by Bachiashvili.

Tsikvadze stressed that the article should have focused on “the illegal appropriation of Bidzina Ivanishvili’s bitcoins by Giorgi Bachiashvili and the subsequent legalisation of unlawful income”.

However, he claimed that The New York Times, like The Guardian, operates under the same influence as local partisan media and acts in a similar manner.