Salome Chkheidze
At the pre-trial process on Gigi Ugulava’s case, Tbilisi Mayor, the admissibility of the prosecutor’s evidence was discussed. The defense side requested to remove Businessman Joseph Kei from the list of witnesses.
Prosecutor’s office provided the list of witnesses to be interrogated in the episode of TV-Company Imedi in Gigi Ugulava’s case. Defense side requested not to admit list of evidence and claimed that Joseph Kei shall be definitely removed from the list because he was questioned through violation of the law. Gigi Ugulava’s lawyer said at the trial that Joseph Kei was questioned twice and both of his testimonies were almost equal. The words, set of sentences are so equal that the defense side doubts the second testimony was just copied and then Kei signed it.
The defense side also requested to remove testimonies of Giorgi Isakadze and Paata Siradze, who were questioned at night. The lawyer said the interrogation was conducted through blatant violation of the law because a person can be questioned at night if it is caused by urgent necessity though the protocol does not indicate at similar necessity at all.
Prosecutor’s side requested reasonable time to present their final position on the issue due to large amount of the solicitation of the defense side. Judge accepted the position of the prosecutor and postponed the pretrial hearing to July 3.
Court did not satisfy the solicitation of the chief prosecutor’s office to impose imprisonment on the City Mayor as a preventive measure; Prosecutor’s Office requested to impose 1 million lari bail on Ugulava and to suspend his professional authority. However, the court did not impose any preventive measure on the mayor at all.