Georgia jails third opposition leader as crackdown expands
Having weathered mass demonstrations over a disputed October election and a subsequent decision to halt talks on joining the European Union, Georgian authorities have moved to clamp down on leading figures of the protest movement.
Gvaramia had refused to testify to a parliamentary commission investigating alleged wrongdoing under jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who was in power from 2004 to 2012. If convicted of failing to comply with the commission, he could be jailed for up to one year.
Gvaramia is a leader of the pro-Western Coalition for Change bloc which came second in the October election that the opposition rejected as fraudulent. The government rejected the allegation, but two U.S. polling organisations said there was evidence of manipulation.
Gvaramia did not attend his court hearing, instead reporting to prison before the verdict was announced, in what his party said was an effort to show the decision was pre-determined by a biased court.
In a post on Facebook, he wrote: "Not one step back! Our homeland is behind us! The oligarchy must fall! Glory to Georgia!"
Two other Coalition for Change leaders, Zurab Japaridze and Nika Melia, are already in jail on similar charges.
A media entrepreneur who served under Saakashvili in a series of ministerial roles, Gvaramia was previously imprisoned for abuse of office from 2022 to 2023, in a case Western countries said was politically motivated.
Traditionally one of the Soviet Union's most pro-Western and democratic successor states, Georgia has moved in a sharply authoritarian direction in the past two years, with the ruling Georgian Dream party passing a series of laws critics have described as draconian.
Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire ex-prime minister widely seen as the country's most powerful man, has repeatedly pledged to ban opposition parties, whilst also presiding over warming ties with Russia and souring relations with the West.
Earlier this week, authorities issued court summons to over a dozen activists, journalists and opposition politicians on charges of insulting ruling party lawmakers.
On Thursday, a court jailed a 21-year-old protester for four and a half years for assaulting police, in a case government critics have said is fabricated.
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Comedian Eric André WILL be able to sue over 'dehumanizing' search by cops at airport
Happy Gilmore 2 actor Eric André has received good news in a lawsuit he's involved in against Clayton County, Georgia over a 2021 incident at an Atlanta airport. The American actor-comedian, 42, and fellow entertainer Clayton English, 43, said in a legal complaint officers with the Clayton County Police Department breached their rights in separate incidents - André's in April 2021 and English's in October 2020. Both of the plaintiffs, who are Black, claimed in their complaint that race factored into why they were illegally stopped at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, according to legal docs reviewed by the Daily Mail. In each instance, André and English told the court that they were making their way through jet bridges connecting them to Los Angeles-bound Delta planes when police stopped them. The case was thrown out of court nearly two years ago in Atlanta, but on Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th circuit revived it. Daily Mail has reached out to André's publicists for further comment on the story. The court ruled on Friday that André and English had their rights violated by the county, in terms of not having to deal with searches and seizures that do not have proper cause behind them. The appeals court threw out the racial discrimination claim filed by English and André, who formerly dated Blurred Lines beauty Emily Ratajkowski. An attorney for the entertainers, Barry Friedman, spoke about the latest development with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday. Friedman said that he looks forward 'to returning to the trial court to learn even more about the Clayton County Police Department's unconstitutional jet bridge stop program.' At the time of the incident, André said he was in line for his flight when the officers asked for his consent to search his person, which he declined. This past March, Clayton County attorneys said that both André and English had consented to voluntary searches. The lawyers noted that neither man was detained, as they both were able to board their flights to California with their identification cards and airline boarding passes. The appeals court ruled that 'common sense and the Supreme Court both refute this theory,' as the 'plaintiffs' paths were blocked by officers, the officers held onto plaintiffs' IDs and boarding passes during questioning. The court noted that 'the officers did not inform plaintiffs of the voluntary nature of the questioning or that plaintiffs were free to leave until after officers finished their questioning.' The American actor-comedian and fellow entertainer Clayton English said in a legal complaint officers with the Clayton County Police Department breached their rights in separate incidents - André's in April 2021 and English's in October 2020. The airport pictured in 2014 André took to Twitter to detail the harrowing experience, eventually alerting then-Vice President Kamala Harris and then-Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms to what had happened to him. 'I was just racially profiled by two plain clothes Atlanta PD police in @Delta terminal T3 at the Atlanta airport,' he wrote, tagging Atlanta Police. André continued: 'They stopped me on the way down the bridge to the plane for a "random" search and asked they could search me for drugs. I told them no. Be careful.' Andre said that he was the only 'person of color' who had been in the airport line when he was confronted. The Bad Trip actor wrote: 'They let me go. I'm on the plane in the air. I'm fine now but I want this reported. Please any Atlanta lawyer reach out to me. @KeishaBottoms #racialprofiling #jimcrowgeorgia terminal T3 Atlanta airport.' Bottoms replied to Andre's tweet, informing him that the incident had not taken place in the purview of the Atlanta police. 'Sorry to hear about your experience,' Bottoms said. 'It's my understanding that this was not APD, but another one of the many agencies working in the airport. We are working to confirm.' The Atlanta Police Department said on social media that it was not the agency that was involved in the incident with the actor-comic. 'The Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is somewhat unique in that multiple law enforcement agencies operate there,' the department said. 'It appears this incident involved members of another agency. 'Additionally, members of APD's Airport Drug Interdiction Unit do not randomly approach travelers and ask to search them. Searches are conducted based on some type of evidence or indication of criminal activity.' The Clayton County Police Department at the time issued a statement acknowledging it was their agency that had stopped Andre, claiming he had consented to speak with the officers and let them search his belongings. 'On April 21, 2021, the Clayton County Police Department made a consensual encounter with a male traveler, later identified as Eric Andre, as he was preparing to fly to California from the Atlanta Airport,' the statement read. 'Mr. Andre chose to speak with investigators during the initial encounter. 'During the encounter, Mr. Andre voluntarily provided the investigators information as to his travel plans. Clayton County officials continued, 'Mr. Andre also voluntarily consented to a search of his luggage but the investigators chose not to do so. Investigators identified that there was no reason to continue a conversation and therefore terminated the encounter. 'Mr. Andre boarded the plane without being detained and continued on his travels. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the Atlanta Police Department did not assist in this consensual encounter.' Andre called the statement 'sad and full of misinformation' and denied that he gave officers consent to search him and said he was 'detained ... with no probable cause except for racism.' 'I did NOT volunteer to a search and I did not volunteer to talk,' Andre said on Twitter. 'You guys flashed your badge and detained me with no probable cause except for racism. This is JIM CROW RACISM @ClaytonCountyPD I DID NOT VOLUNTEER TO A SEARCH. YOU ARE HARASSING ME. THIS IS RACISM! @KeishaBottoms.'
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Wife, 55, fatally shoots husband after argument over changing their open marriage agreement
A Georgia woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars after she drunkenly shot and killed her husband amid a dispute over their open marriage. Cheryl Howell Coe, 55, was sentenced on Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the June 2021 shooting of Luther 'Luke' Coe III, 48, inside their home, the Newnan Times-Herald reports. Officials with the Cowetta County Sheriff's Office have said they responded at around 7.30pm on June 23, 2021 moments after Cheryl reported that she shot her husband when she mistook him for an intruder. In body camera footage from the scene, Cheryl told deputies she drank four or five ciders while her husband worked in a detached garage, before she ultimately took a Klonopin and went to bed. She said she was woken up a short time later to an unknown person entering her bedroom, which prompted her to grab her pistol from the nightstand. 'I was just trying to protect myself,' Cheryl said in the body camera footage, which was played at her week-long retrial this month. She went on to claim she did not realize the person entering the room was her husband until he said, 'Cheryl, you shot me.' By the time deputies arrived on the scene, Cheryl was seen applying pressure on her husband's wound as he told authorities, 'I can't breathe.' He was then rushed to the hospital, but soon succumbed to his injuries. Cheryl's story quickly fell apart, however, when the medical examiner found that Luther had suffered from a contact bullet wound - meaning the rifle was pressed against his body and was not fired from a distance as his wife had claimed. Investigators then also uncovered lengthy text message exchanges between the husband and wife in which they appeared to have some issues with their open marriage in the days leading up to the fatal shooting. According to the messages, Cheryl had asked Luther for permission to see another man later in the week. Luther replied by asking his wife if she was planning on seeing another man as well, to which she replied that she could - ending her message with 'lol,' the Times-Herald reports. Luther then replied that her response 'turned his stomach,' at which point Cheryl proposed ending the open marriage - saying she believed it was the cause of their marital issues. But Luther apparently wanted to keep the open marriage going, and they established more ground rules. Other text messages detailed another dispute between the husband and wife, with her accusing him of telling a friend about their private disagreements. Luther became enraged by the accusation and told his wife he needed some time to himself, prosecutors argued. Finally, on the day of the shooting, Cheryl said Luther informed her he was ready to talk. But when she returned home from work that night, her husband and his son were still in the detached workshop on their property and so Cheryl decided to retire to the back porch, where she downed several hard ciders. She said Luther never came back and after an hour on the porch, she went to bed. When the door then swung open, Cheryl said she fired two shots, aiming at the ceiling and behind the television, in hopes that the gunfire would alert her husband in the workshop. But when Cheryl was later confronted by the fact that she called 911 just 11 minutes after she claimed she went to bed, the defendant changed her story and admitted she knew it was Luther entering the room. She claimed she could hear his 'thunderous footsteps' and yelling before he entered their bedroom, where she said Luther told her to 'get her ass out of bed' and dragged her from the mattress. 'I just wanted to be left alone and he wasn't having it,' Cheryl told police. 'He was dragging me out of bed.' When Luther then briefly left the room, Cheryl said she grabbed her pistol and fired a warning shot, which made him 'angry and aggressive,' at which point she fired a second shot to scare him off. 'I wasn't trying to hit him,' she insisted. Cheryl also told police about her and her husband's BDSM practices, saying she was the 'submissive' one but arguing Luther's behavior that night was 'different.' Taking the stand at her trial, Cheryl reiterated her self-defense claims as she described how her husband had become more aggressive with her. She said he once pulled her leg out from under her as she walked down the porch stairs, causing her to suffer a tear in her buttocks and an indentation that required surgery to fully heal. Cheryl also said their BDSM practices became more violent, even though she asked him to stop. 'I didn't enjoy the pain,' she testified. 'He would coerce me and tell me I was doing this for him and [it] made him happy.' 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The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
Father of CDC shooter says son believed Covid vaccine had sickened him
The father of the man who opened fire outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta earlier in August has said that his son was grappling with untreated mental health issues when misinformation convinced him that the Covid-19 vaccine was lethally sickening him. 'I know my son wanted to make this about 'the jab', and that was his latest cause, but this is more about mental health than anything,' Ken White said in a new interview with Atlanta News First. White's son, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, fired more than 180 rounds at the CDC buildings in Atlanta on 8 August, according to authorities. The attacker fatally shot a police officer, David Rose, and then died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, investigators said. In his new interview, Ken White said his son had asked to borrow his car to meet a friend in the hours before the shooting. But at about 5pm that day, White and his wife received a phone call from their son. 'I asked him how he was doing,' White recalled. 'He said, 'I'm gonna shoot up the CDC,' and then he hung up.' White said he 'immediately tried to call him back' – but that Patrick had 'turned the phone off'. Moments later, White recounted, he saw a breaking news alert of an active shooter at the CDC and called 911. White said that he recognized his car on the television, confirming for him that it was his son who was the shooter. 'There's nobody else it could be,' White said. Several days after the shooting, authorities said that the firearms used in the attack were registered to Ken White, and that Patrick had stolen them from a safe. Authorities said that the weapons were securely stored, and that the gunman had 'forced his way' into the safe that contained them. 'I don't know how he got hold of the firearms, White remarked in the Atlanta News First interview. 'We thought they were safe. 'I locked them up. I kept the key on my person 24-7, and I slept with it.' Later in the interview, White said that 'as much as we're grieving for our son, [we're grieving] for [slain] Officer Rose a whole lot more'. The family said that Patrick had been displaying signs of mental illness during his last two years, including depression. But the family said that they did not know if he was ever formally diagnosed. The family said that they found bottles of medication prescribed for depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder that Patrick had left behind. White said his son's anger toward the CDC stemmed from Covid-19 vaccination misinformation. Authorities also said that they recovered documents and electronic devices belonging to Patrick that reportedly 'expressed the shooter's discontent with the Covid-19 vaccinations' and said that Patrick had written about wanting to make 'the public aware of his discontent with the vaccine'. A neighbor separately told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Patrick was 'very unsettled, and he very deeply believed that vaccines hurt him and were hurting other people'. Ken White also confirmed that he and other members of his family were vaccinated. And it has been previously reported that Patrick was also vaccinated before he blamed the Covid-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal.
