Gela Mtivlishvili
After the Rose Revolution Nodar Sakuashvili used to host president Saakashvili in Kakheti region. Mikheil Saakashvili used to take honorable guests to his house in Saniore during many years. Nodar Sakuashvili became a privileged businessman during the current authority; mostly it was attributed to the relation between the families of his sister and the minister of internal affairs of Georgia Vano Merabishvili. After the death of Nodar Sakuashvili the relatives of Merabishvili misappropriated almost entire property of Sakuashvili.
The sister of Nodar Sakuashvili Ketevan Jinchveladze is an aunt of Vano Merabishvili’s wife Tako Salakaia. More precisely, Ketevan Jinchveladze is the wife of Salakaia’s uncle – Nugzar Jinchveladze (mother’s brother). Sakuashvili’s widow Lia Elizbarashvili states that Ketevan Jinchveladze misappropriated her brother’s property as a result of threats, fabricated documents and violations.
Businessman Nodar Sakuashvili died on January 30, 2007. Sakuashvili owned wine-factories, several hundred hectares of vine-yards, auto-gas stations, hotel, houses, trading centers and other properties. The audit valued his property with 5 189 381 GEL. According to the law, the property was to be shared among the first-level heirs (spouse, children and parents) equally. Nodar Sakuashvili had three children with his first wife (their marriage was legally registered); he had two children with his second wife however, the sister of the dead businessman Ketevan Jinchveladze registered the property of 4 428 801 GEL on her name.
Before death, Nodar Sakuashvili had taken a loan of 2 000 000 USD from the “Cartu Bank” for his company “Telav Gvino” and he had to cover the debt till 2011. He had also leased agricultural vehicles from the ministry of agriculture for 222 691 GEL for final purchase. He had to pay the lease-price gradually.
Offside Position
Lia Elizbarashvili, first wife of Nodar Sakuashvili: “Nodar and I got married in 1980. We had three children. We accumulated all our property during our marriage. We were building the house in the village of Saniore in Telavi district during 10 years. Later, Nodari’s parents and sister with her family moved into our house to live together with us.
Because of tense situation in the family I abandoned the family in 2000; however, we did not get divorced officially. In 2004, I received a notification from the Telavi city court – Nodari requested to divorce me but I did not go to the court. In 2007, Nodari died –he had artificial cancer. After his death my children and I did not receive anything from his property. I was declared divorced with my husband and they seized all property from me.”
-What do you mean by declaring divorced?
-I learned that we got divorced based on the fabricated signatures of Nodari. He did not attend the trials at all. The case materials do not contain the warrant of his attorney Tamar Metreveli either. Thus, it was false divorce. They planned to misappropriate the property long before.”
Lia Elizbarashvili appealed to the Telavi district police department and requested to start investigation on the fabrication of the divorce documents. We got hold of the conclusion # 625/GR of the expert S. Odzelashvili from the expert criminalist main department which states: “The records on the second and third pages of the yellow note-book of Lia Elizbarashvili and the signatures of Nodar Sakuashvili on the lease agreement with the JSC CartuBank belong to one person; however the signatures of Nodar Sakuashvili in the divorce documents dated by February 16, 2004 in the case # 2/100 at the Telavi District Court belong to other person(s).
Dividing the Property
The property division agreement among the coheirs of the inheritance was registered on August 4, 2007. The Notary Giorgi Beriashvili stated in the notary act that he was applied at the notary bureau by:
1. Nana Sakuashvili – daughter from the first marriage;
2. Nino Sakuashvili – daughter from the first marriage;
3. legal representative of Inga Sakuashvili (under-age daughter from the first marriage) Nino Sakuashvili;
4. Eter Ivanishvili – second wife of Nodar Sakuashvili (were not officially married; she represented her under age children Kristina Sakuashvili and Mate Sakuashvili);
5. Ketino Sakuashvili – mother
6. Kosta Sakuashvili – father.
“They requested me to prepare a property division agreement on the inheritance left by late Nodar Sakuashvili. I checked their legal capacity and I confirm that there was no ground to suspect about their legal capacity. The applicants stated that Nodar Sakuashvili left large amount of property but they were also informed about the creditors from whom Nodar Sakuashvili had loaned money. The percents and fines were added to the initial loans. In order to timely and operatively pay the debts and avoid additional expenses, and bearing in mind the possibility of the existence of other creditors too, the coheirs preferred to place full liability for the debts of the estate upon one of the heirs, in exchange for giving him a portion increased pro rata in accordance to the Article 1466 of the Civil Code of Georgia. The coheirs named Kosta Sakuashvili (the father) to be the heir in charge of the debts. The coheirs agreed to assign 4 428 801 GEL to Kosta Sakuashvili out of the total property of 5 189 381 GEL and the remaining 764 580 GEL was to be divided among 6 heirs. The parties have read the agreement and declared that the agreement exactly demonstrates their positions and signed the document in presence of the notary,” states the Notary Act.
Nana and Nino Sakuashvilis claim that the Notary did not ask them anything. Being brought to the Notary Bureau they signed the previously prepared agreement without reading it.
Nana Sakuashvili, daughter of Nodar Sakuashvili: “Father was ill before death. He went to America for medical treatment but they could not cure him. We knew that he had written a will which clearly stated how the property was to be divided and how the loans were to be paid. After the death, Aunt Ketevan Jinchveladze, who lived with us together with her husband, told us that the attorney was going to read the will 6 months after the death. However, later nobody mentioned the will. We were even told that there was no will and grandfather was supposed to receive the entire property. When they brought notary Giorgi Beriashvili home, he refused to register the notary act. He said he could not register such a huge property on one person. Afterwards, the aunt said the property would be shared between the children too. My sister Inga Sakuashvili is underage. Our mother was not in Georgia then. She sent warrant to my sister Nino Sakuashvili from Greece to receive the property of my underage sister. In August of 2007, we were taken to the notary and we signed the agreement on property division. We received a very small portion of the property but we cannot use it yet. The rest property was registered on Kosta Sakuashvili. We were told, it was formal side and in fact everything belonged to us. Before signing the agreement, aunt, her husband and the attorney Tamar Metreveli threatened us with digging out our father from the grave and throwing him away into the ravine unless we signed the agreement; they also threatened that the bank officials would misappropriate the entire property.”
In July of 2008, Ketevan Jinchveladze turned out her nieces of the house in Saniore village and forbade them to use the property.
According to the official documents which we have requested from the Telavi registration agency of the National Agency of Public Registry, Ketevan Jinchveladze received the house in Saniore village from her mother – Ketino Sakuashvili based on the grant agreement issued on September 11, 2007. The agreement was proved by the Telavi district notary Giorgi Beriashvili.
We got interested how the house of Nodar Sakuashvili’s family became the property of Ketino Sakuashvili. According to the Telavi district registration agency, the house was registered on Ketino Sakuashvili by the Saniore village territorial entity based on the notifications # 103 issued on August 13, 2007 and notification # 109 issued on August 21, 2007.
Notification # 105 states: “The notification is issued on Ketevan Nanuashvili to notify that according to the registration book, there are two members in her family – husband Kosta Sakuashvili and herself Ketino Sakuashvili.” Notification # 109 states: “The notification is issued on Ketevan Sakuashvili to notify that 0, 3730 hectares of agricultural land with the individual residential house in it was registered on her family.” Commissary of the Saniore territorial entity Alika Batsashvili signed the notifications. Batsashvili died in 2009.
Head of the Telavi registration agency of the National Agency of Public Registry Lia Svinomishvili said that Nodar Sakuashvili gave the abovementioned house to his mother Ketino Sakuashvili as a present in 1995. The family registration book states: “Based on the agreement # 73 issued in 1995, Nodar Sakuashvili gave the residential house of 800 sq. meters to his mother Ketino Sakuashvili as a present.”
Based on our official request, we were notified by the Telavi district archive that they could not find the agreement # 73 issued in 1995 in the archive documents; based on this agreement Nodar Sakuashvili had supposedly assigned the house to his mother Ketino Sakuashvili.
Self-Agreement
Wife of Nodar Sakuashvili Lia Elizbarashvili, who had already returned to Georgia when her daughters were turned out of their house in Saniore village, appealed to the Telavi district court as a legal representative of her minor daughter Inga Sakuashvili. The applicant requested to annul the inheritance division document which was signed on August 4, 2007. Lia Elizbarashvili stated that her daughters had signed the document under oppression and Notary Giorgi Beriashvili had made a swindle deal with the Jinchveladzes. Simultaneously, Lia Elizbarashvili stated in the appeal that she had given warrant to her elder daughter to receive the property of her minor daughter Inga Sakuashvili but it did not foresee any other agreements.
The lawyer said that Notary Giorgi Beriashvili had drawn up the inheritance division agreement illegally.
Nino Andriashvili, lawyer for the Human Rights Center: “Lia Elizbarashvili gave warrant only to receive the property and not for sharing it. Based on the inheritance division agreement signed on August 4, 2007 property of minor Inga Sakuashvili was managed though the legal representative did not have similar right. The Notary was entitled to check the authority of the legal representative. Besides that, Nino Sakuashvili, legal representative of her minor sister, was also part of the agreement as a daughter of Nodar Sakuashvili and it contradicted the Article 114 of the Civil Code. Nino Sakuashvili signed the self-agreement on sharing the inheritance which was not implemented by the abovementioned warrant. According to the Article 63, Part I of the Civil Code of Georgia “If a minor makes a bilateral transaction (contract) without the required consent of his statutory representative [“legal representative”], then the validity of the transaction depends upon whether the representative subsequently approves it or not, except when the minor acquires a benefit by the transaction.” In this particular case, Lia Elizbarashvili did not like the transaction and requested to abolish it.”
It is also noteworthy, that on May 28, 2007 Telavi district education resource center appointed Nino Sakuashvili to be the curator of her underage sister Inga Sakuashvili. According to the law, without preliminary agreement of the curator institution, Nino Sakuashvili did not have right to sign any agreements. According to the Civil Code of Georgia, curator and guardian are different notions and their responsibilities also differ.
“Since the part of the agreement was underage, Notary Giorgi Beriashvili had to consider the high risk of curator’s existence and request corresponding documents from the curator institutions; though he did not do it,” said lawyer Nino Andriashvili.
Notary Giorgi Beriashvili clarified that he registered the notary act in accordance to the law. “The parties had no complaints during the signing of the document,” said Beriashvili.
Hypocritical Agreement
On December 15 of 2008, Judge Nunu Nemsitsveridze of Telavi District Court satisfied the complaint of Lia Elizbarashvili and entirely abolished the agreement made on August 4 of 2007. Though, before the decision was made, Kosta Sakuashvili presented almost the entire property to his daughter Ketevan Jinchveladze. As for Jinchveladze, he registered the part of the inherited property under Tbilisi residents Davit Delibashvili and Besarion Kochishvili in a purchase agreement on August 1 of 2008, three days before the decision was passed. It should be noted that both gift and purchase agreements were registered by the same notary Gorgi Beriashvili. Giorgi Beriashvili was involved in the case hearings as a party and was aware of all the case proceedings.
The decision of Telavi Regional Court was appealed in Tbilisi Appellate Court by Kosta Sakuashvili’s lawyers, Mirdat Kamadadze and Giorgi Kavlashvili. Appellate Court changed the decision of Telavi District Court. The part of August 4, 2007 notary act of Giorgi Berishvili, concerning the transition of the 1/7 of inherited property to Kosta Sakuashvili was rendered invalid by the Appellate Court. The decision of Appellate Court was also appealed in Supreme Court. The “official document confirming the fact of illness” was presented in Supreme Court for releasing Kosta Sakuashvili from state taxes, but the court considered that the document did not satisfy the requirements established by the law. According to Nunu Kvantaliani, judge of Supreme Court, the note of Ltd “mkurnali” (healer) did not indicate under whose name the note was issued. According to court, the cassator did not pay the tax on time and therefore Supreme Court didn’t consider the cassation appeal in the verdict of Supreme Court of May 31 of 2010.
Before the final decision was made by the Supreme Court, on February 15th of 2010, Ketevan Jinchveladze, with the help of notary Giorgi Beriashvili, registered one more purchase agreement with Besarion Kochishvili and transferred the land of 7 settlements situated at Lionidze St. Telavi to him. According to Lia Elizbarashvili, Besarion Kochishvili and Davit Delibashvili are trustees of Ketevan Jinchveladze. The purpose of registration of property under their name was to deprive Inga Sakuashvili of the part of property the right on which was returned to her by Court decision. According to paragraph F of article 23 of Law on Public Registry, if the right of ownership is transferred to the new owner by the time of request of registration of property as an ownership, then there is the ground for rejecting the registration.
The fact that Besarion Kochiashvili is not the real owner of the property is obvious considering that he burdened the part of property purchased from Ketevan Jinchveladze, namely, the 533 sq. meter land situation at Alazani Avenue, Telavi, with the mortgage on October 9, 2010 on behalf of Bank Cartu.
On February 15th, Ketevan Jinchveladze “alienated” the house located in the village Saniore, Telavi region. According to purchase agreement, the house was registered under Maia Marghishvili’s name, though Nodar Sakuashvili’s parents Kosta and Ketino Sakuashvilis are still living there.
Despite numerous attempts, we could not contact Lia Elizbarashvili’s sister-in-law Ketevan Jinchveladze and her spouse Nugzar Jinchveladze. They don’t talk to journalists. While conducting journalistic investigation, we visited village Saniore, but could not talk to Kosta and Ketino Sakuashvilis. They refused to meet.
Photo archive: Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia and businessman Nodar Saquashvili (on the left) in Saniore
Journalistic investigation was carried out in the framework of the project implemented by the Studio Monitor by financial support of the EU Mission in Georgia, Eurasian Partnership Foundation and Foundation “Open Society –Georgia” .
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