Defense and Prosecution Presenting Their Speeches in Case of Gvaramia

Salome Achba

At a trial held on March 19th the Defense and Prosecution presented their introductory speeches. Prosecution talked about factual circumstances of case. Defense Side called the accusations absurd. None of the defendants confess the crime.

The former Minister of Justice and Education Nika Gvaramia is charged with assistance to bribe taking, legalization of illegal income and usage of false tax documentation. Along with him, former Minister of Energy Aleksandre Khetaguri is charged with taking bribe, legalization of illegal income and abuse of authority. There are four more defendants in the case.

The Office of Prosecutor reviewed the case circumstances in its introductory speech:

“One of the witnesses in the case, general director of Telasi states that his company had some financial problems and if the state conducted financial examination, the company would have been fined by 10 million GEL which would have caused bankruptcy.

Former head of the company Telasi asked Aleksandre Khetaguri to assist him with this situation. In 2012 Khetaguri received offering to solve financial problems existing between the company and the state and he would receive one million GEL in exchange. Nika Gvaramia also got involved in the case. This money was going to be transferred to the account of certain organization as a payment for the consultation given by this organization.

Gvaramia persuaded Giorgi Nemsitsveridze to create a consultation organization under his name to whose account one million GEL would have been transferred. The organization was founded urgently on July 26th and the money was soon transferred to its account. The defendants used this scheme for money laundering” – the prosecution noted in its introductory speech.

“If the defendants wanted to give Khetaguri bribe, they could have used suitcases for this purpose. Why did they have to elaborate such a complicated scheme? Besides, when the prosecution claims that there were 20-25 people involved in this case, how can you imagine giving information to so many people?!” – Lawyer of one of the defendant Devi Kandelaki noted.

Lawyer of Aleksandre Khetaguri backed this position and noted:

“Prosecution always emphasizes that there is one million GEL involved in this case which is not true. We are talking about 923 thousand GEL. Has anyone heard that someone receives bribe in uneven number like that? Bribe is always even number” – Khetaguri’s lawyer noted.

Defendant Nika Gvaramia also made speech and called the charges absurd and politically motivated:

“It is very clear that this case is politically motivated and it does not have any credible evidence. As the prosecution states, almost the whole world is involved in this process. I personally have never heard about any fact of taking bribe with so many people involved” – Gvaramia noted.

Next trial will be held on April 1st where examination of evidence and interrogation of witnesses will take place.