as inadmissible. He said that the state’s charges are unfounded and that people who have no influence upon the investigation process are facing pre-trial detention.
FactChecktook interest in Irakli Alasania’s statement and verified its accuracy.
On 28 October 2014, five high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defence of Georgia were detained and charged on 29 October 2014 with embezzlement of state property (Article 182 of the Criminal Code of Georgia). According to the resolution produced by the prosecution, the accused persons, using their positions, embezzled about GEL 4,102,872 of state budget money in favour of the Silknet company, thereby effectively overpaying for classified military internet communications cables.
According to the statement of the defence attorney, Soso Baratashvili, the amount of money transferred to Silknet was approved at a Cabinet meeting and allocated according to a directive of the Prime Minister. The position of the prosecution is based upon the commodity and engineering experts’ report according to which the Ministry of Defence of Georgia paid GEL 4,102,872 more than was necessary.
As a motive for the crime, the prosecution states the fact that employees of the State Procurement Department contacted Silknet representatives prior to the procurement process. According to the prosecution, this information shows that these individuals are acquaintances and creates the suspicion of embezzlement. The aforementioned position of the prosecution, however, fails to link the telephone calls of the employees of the Ministry of Defence to their motive for embezzling state property.
The Law on State Procurement of Georgia does not include classified state procurement as announced by the Ministry of Defence of Georgia. In addition, as of today, the law does not provide for the rules of procedure for a classified state procurement process. The formulation of these rules is the competence of the State Security and Crisis Management Council whilst the adoption of the document is the task of the Government of Georgia. Hence, the requirements which the Prosecutor’s Office deems having not been met (market study, a short term for presenting propositions and so on) have no legal ground.
On 30 October 2014, Tbilisi City Court ruled in favour of the pre-trial detention of the accused. The motion of the Prosecutor’s Office and the decision of the court were not strengthened with evidence which contradicts the requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Georgia and European practice (Paragraph 79). The European Court of Human Rights has on numerous occasions criticised Georgia’s local courts for using the stereotyped formula of pre-trial detention without due evidence (see link 1 and link 2).After presenting the charges, the prosecution refused to hand over copies of the evidence to the side of the defence whilst claiming that the case was classified. In addition, the Prosecutor’s Office suggested that the attorney take a look at the several volumes of evidence which are located in their premises. It would, however, be impossible for the defence to effectively prepare for the court trial simply by looking through these materials. Part of the case was de-classified on 25 November 2014 and the defence received copies of the evidence. According to the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia, about 7% of the case remains classified. The request of the defence to get the information which the prosecution was planning to use as evidence for the trial must be satisfied immediately at any stage of the criminal process. This requirement was not met in this case.
A pre-trial hearing was held on 1 April 2015 five months after the court ruled in favour of the pre-trial detention for the accused. The Criminal Procedure Code of Georgia determines 60 days after detention as a reasonable time period for a pre-trial hearing (Article 208 of the Criminal Procedure Code). In this case, the right of the accused to timely justice has been violated as postponing the pre-trial hearing for five months exceeds the aforementioned reasonable time period as determined by the law and, in addition, is not sufficiently justified.
On 5 June 2015, the court of first instance deemed the commodity and engineering experts’ report in the so-called ‘Cables Case’ as inadmissible, regarding it as evidence obtained in violation of the law. The aforementioned report is an important piece of evidence for the prosecution. In addition, by the decision of the judge, the experts who authored the report were excluded from the list of the people to be questioned. The prosecution appealed to the court of appeals on the aforementioned decision of Tbilisi ity Court.
After the decision of Tbilisi ity Court, Irakli Alasania stated that Bidzina Ivanishvili had met several judges and, in return for halting some legislative changes, agreed with them on a specific ruling for the ‘Cables Case.’
On 15 June 2015, the court of appeals deemed the evidence as presented by the prosecution, previously regarded as inadmissible by the court of first instance, as admissible.
After eight months of pre-trial detention, the court of first instance did not satisfy the motion of the prosecution about bail for the accused. The accused were freed upon the basis of personal guarantees on 19 June 2015.
Conclusion
On 29 October 2014, five former high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defence of Georgia were accused of embezzlement of state property.
The position of the prosecution fails to provide a motive for the crime or explain its legal basis. An important violation in the case is that, despite the requests from the side of the defence, the prosecution refused to hand over evidence.
The court of first instance deemed the commodity and engineering experts’ report in the so-called ‘Cables Case’ as inadmissible – about which Irakli Alasania talked in his statement. However, later, the court of appeals deemed this report admissible. The decision of the court of appeals was preceded by Mr Alasania’s statement that Bidzina Ivanishvili had struck an agreement with several judges in return for a specific decision.
FactCheck concludes that Irakli Alasania’s statement is TRUE.
[1] ‘Cables Case’ – an investigation against five high ranking officials of the Ministry of Defence of Georgia in which the prosecution accused these officials of the embezzlement of state property. The aforementioned case was followed by the resignation of the then Minister of Defence of Georgia, Irakli Alasania.
