Georgia arrests torture suspects in new swipe at old government http://en.shafaqna.com/component/k2/item/18307-georgia-arrests-torture-suspects-in-new-swipe-at-old-government.html
Georgian police on Wednesday arrested nine serving and former police and military officers on suspicion of torture that the interior minister said was a "systemic problem" under the previous government of President Mikheil Saakashvili.Dozens of former officials including a former prime minister have been arrested since Bidzina Ivanishvili's government took office, on charges such as abuse of power, corruption, illegal confinement and illegally obtaining personal information.However, Western countries have aired concerns that the new government has used selective justice and political persecution against political opponents in the ex-Soviet republic, a pivot of geopolitical rivalry between the West and Russia.The nine suspects are accused of involvement in the torture and rape of two detainees depicted on videos found this week in a cache along with guns and drugs, Interior Minister Irakly Garibashvili said."We believe it was a systemic problem ... it was a problem of the previous regime, the previous leadership," he said, adding that "high-ranking officials during whose tenure such terrible things were happening should be held responsible".