Ruling party MPs vow to support Shotadze’s return as prosecutor general, opposition angered
The seat of the Georgian Prosecutor General became vacant in December 2019. Photo: Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia.
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Ruling party MPs Mamuka Mdinaradze and Giorgi Volski have promised to vote again for Irakli Shotadze, “a professional and a worthy man,” if he is selected as the country’s prosecutor general by the Prosecutorial Council in the coming months.
Leader of the European Georgia opposition party Gigi Ugulava says that Shotadze’s possible nomination and election to the post by parliament will be “a cynical [move] after he [Shotadze] was forced to resign in 2018,” adding that the founder of the Georgian Dream ruling party Bidzina Ivanishvili backs Shotadze.
Zaza Saralidze, father of deceased minor David Saralidze, whose son’s case became the reason for Shotadze’s resignation, says that Shotadze’s “return to the battlefield will be dignified.”
I think Shotadze wants to show his innocence to my son [that he made no wrongdoings during the investigation of the case]. I would evaluate his running for the post as a [possible] dignified return on the battlefield,” Saralidze said.
Shotadze was the first Georgian prosecutor general who was elected by parliament in 2015. Photo: netgazeti.
Georgian Technical University has nominated Shotadze for the country’s new prosecutor general after former Chief Prosecutor Shalva Tadumadze was approved as a lifetime judge of the Georgian Supreme Court in December 2019.
Shotadze, who was the first Georgian prosecutor general elected by parliament in 2015, resigned on May 31, 2018, after Tbilisi City Court delivered its verdict on the high profile murder case of two teenage boys in central Tbilisi in December 2017.
Candidates for the Georgian Prosecutor General will be registered until January 18, 2020.
The final nominee will be presented by the specially created Prosecutorial Council and will be voted on in parliament.
Former Georgian Prosecutor General Irakli Shotadze, who resigned in 2018, has been registered to run for the post again after former Chief Prosecutor Shalva Tadumadze was approved as a lifetime judge of the Georgian Supreme Court in December 2019.
Tbilisi Court of Appeals ruled earlier today that a 16-year-old David Saralidze, in a high-profile Khorava street murder case of two minors in 2017, was killed by another minor, G.J., with other unidentified individuals in central Tbilisi.
Tbilisi city court has sent a fourth individual to prison for the high-profile murder case on Khorava Street in central Tbilisi last year, claiming the lives of two minors - David Saralidze and Levan Dadunashvili.
The Georgian Chief Prosecutor Irakli Shotadze has resigned in the wake of the Tbilisi City Court verdict on the high profile murder case of two teenage boys in central Tbilisi in December last year. In a special statement released on the official page of the Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office, Shotadze stated that his body has taken all measures to establish the truth on the case.
The Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC), an organisation working on human rights issues, calls on Prosecutorial Council not to select former Prosecutor General Irakli Shotadze’s candidacy back for the top position.
Former Georgian Prosecutor General Irakli Shotadze, who resigned in 2018, has been selected among four shortlisted candidates for the same post by the Prosecutorial Council earlier today. Now the council will present Shotadze in parliament for a vote.
Former Georgian Prosecutor General Irakli Shotadze, who resigned in 2018, might take the post again as he is among the four candidates who were advanced through the selection process by the Prosecutorial Council earlier today.
The atmosphere around the Georgian parliament building earlier today was tense after civic activists were refused by police to enter the legislative body and attend the hearing of former Prosecutor General Irakli Shotadze, who has been nominated for the post again, at Parliament's Legal Issues’ Committee later today. Civic activists say that Shotadze does not deserve the post and his re-proposal was the “personal decision” of the founder of the Georgian Dream ruling party Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Members of opposition parties and their supporters are now holding a rally by the parliament building in central Tbilisi, protesting Irakli Shotadze’s possible re-election as prosecutor general.
The Georgian Chief Prosecutor Irakli Shotadze has stated that 15,625 individuals were charged in 2020 by the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia, while the figure stood at 19,114 in 2019.