Georgia TV At Eye Of Media Freedom Storm Sold

Editors at the station said it had become the hostage of `dirty political games` and many of the original editorial staff left.

A Georgian television station at the centre of a storm over the country's record on media freedom has been sold to the United Arab Emirates-based RAK Investment Authority (RAKIA), the companies said on Wednesday.

Imedi TV has been the subject of an ownership dispute since its founder, billionaire opposition figure Badri Patarkatsishvili, died in London in February 2008.

"The global financial crisis negatively affected the work of Imedi channel," former owner Joseph Kay told a news conference.

"I found a partner who is ready to invest in Imedi and to make this channel return to its leading position in the media market in Georgia," he said.

A representative for Kay said he had retained a 10 percent stake in the company.

Imedi was raided by police in November 2007 during opposition protests against President Mikheil Saakashvili. It was seized by a Tbilisi court in January 2008 when the government accused Patarkatsishvili of plotting a coup during the protests.

The station, briefly operated by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., was taken over by Kay, a Georgian-born American businessman and a distant relative of Patarkatsishvili who said he inherited the founder's stake.

Editors at the station said it had become the hostage of "dirty political games" and many of the original editorial staff left.

Patarkatsishvili's family disputes Kay's claim to ownership and the opposition in Georgia have seized on the controversy as evidence of government meddling in media freedom. The government says it is purely a commercial dispute.

RAKIA representative Mark Monem told a news conference: "We are going to transform the media assets into a strong financial organisation with balanced and objective editorial policy."