( Itar-Tass ) - Georgia's former defense minister Irakly Okruashvili together with his wife and a four-year-old daughter left the country on Thursday and is now in Germany, Georgy Khaindrava, a former state minister and one of the leaders of the National Council of Opposition Parties, said on Thursday.
"Okruashvili left Georgia for some time at "the recommendations of authorities and law-enforcement bodies." "According to my information, the authorities recommended him to leave the country to make sure he does not take part in the Opposition's rally in Tbilisi on November 2 and other political processes happening in Georgia," Khaindrava said.
On September 25, Okruashvili accused Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili of the attempt to assert authoritarianism, violations of human and property rights, disrespect for intelligentsia, the attempts to split the Georgian Orthodox Church, the ostentatious fight against corruption and the unwillingness to make real moves towards settling conflicts.
He was arrested on September 27, on charges of abuse of office as defense minister, negligence, money laundering and extortion, as Imedi Television's crew was shooting an interview with him.
In the video recording of the interrogation of Okruashvili in the Prosecutor-General's Office, the former defense minister said that the "accusations addressed to president Saakashvili and other top officials do not correspond to reality, and these statements had the goal to get political dividends and to discredit the president".
The Georgian authorities then released him on bail.
Okruashvili had the post of Georgia's Prosecutor General from January through June 2004 and later moved to the office of Interior Minister.
He took the post of Defense Minister in December 2004 and was transferred to the job of Economic Development Minister November 10, 2006. He resigned from the latter job only a week after his appointment, however.
One of the most publicized accusations Okruashvili has made suggested that Saakashvili asked him two years ago to organize physical elimination of the extremely influential businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili, the president of the Federation of Georgian Businessmen.
Okruashvili, who is known for his radical approach to internal policy issues, leveled severe criticism at the way the Georgian forces conduct military operations in the much-troubled breakaway region of South Ossetia, saying a military operation to restore the Georgian central government's control over the regional capital Tskhinvali has no promise of a success now.
His lawyer Koka Guntadze said Okruashvili would stay away from politics and that in the statements made on September 25, he told "the truth and gave an impulse to the unifications of a majority of the Opposition Parties, and the creation of the national movement against lawlessness."
The local media reported that Okruashvili intended to take part in the Opposition rally on November 2. His associates neither confirmed nor denied this information.