On January 20-21, several Facebook profiles, including “Together for Georgia” and “Fight for Freedom,” as well as other accounts (1, 2, 3, 4) and pages (1, 2) disseminated claims that the Hague Court had issued an arrest warrant for Zviad Kharazishvili (Kharaba), the head of the Special Tasks Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Facebook posts said that Kharazishvili would be detained if he crossed the border of an EU member state.
The claim that the Hague Court issued an arrest warrant for Zviad Kharazishvili is disinformation. Such information has not been reported by Georgian media, nor can it be found on the official website of the court.
Information about the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing an arrest warrant for Zviad Kharazishvili cannot be found in media outlets. Neither the Ministry of Internal Affairs nor the Georgian government has commented on this matter.
Attempts to find this information on the ICC’s official website yielded no results, as there is no announcement or news mentioning Zviad Kharazishvili.
For the ICC to issue an arrest warrant, a case must first be initiated against the individual. However, there is no information that any proceedings have been initiated against Kharazishvili. Arrest warrants are issued by the court’s pre-trial judges. After they determine there is sufficient evidence for a case to proceed, they can issue an arrest warrant. Typically, the court publicly announces who the arrest warrant is for. It did so when it issued arrest warrants for the Russian President and the Israeli Prime Minister.
The post includes a photo of Zviad Kharazishvili with the text “WATHEND.” This term has no meaning in English, and it is likely that the author intended to write “WANTED,” a term commonly associated with individuals sought by law enforcement.
Zviad Kharazishvili, aka Kharaba, has worked in law enforcement for over 30 years. During various administrations, he served in the Special Forces of the State Security Service and later in the Special Operations Department. In 2021, he was appointed head of the Special Tasks Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Myth Detector has previously written about Kharazishvili, uncovering fake accounts that acted in a coordinated manner to support him.
About the Sources
The Facebook accounts “Together for Georgia” and “Fight for Freedom” post identical content. Both accounts list “Power in Unity,” an opposition coalition that participated in the 2020 elections, as their workplace. Myth Detector has previously fact-checked disinformation disseminated by these accounts.
Pages such as “Sofeli Chumlayi,” “News Agency Pirveli,” and the Facebook account “Information Page Pirveli,” also participated in spreading false information about Kharazishvili. Identical content can be found on these pages, distributed on the same timelines, which indicates that the content for them is created by the same people and the pages are managed in a coordinated manner.
The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.
Read detailed instructions for editing the article.
Read detailed appeal instructions.
