Details of Defence Ministry’s procurement case declassified

The Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia has declassified some of the controversial procurement documents that relate to an alleged unlawful tender and the misspending of 4.1 million GEL.

Four current and one former Defence Ministry officials were arrested on October 28 for their alleged role in the sham procurement in 2013.

Today, the Office said 93 percent of the documents relating to the case had been declassified but the rest of the documents would remain classified as they related to state secret military official papers.  

The Ministry of Defence and the Office wanted to declassify case-related documents. The organisations asked the Counter-Intelligence Service Department of the Interior Ministry to declassify the case files, citing the need to review the case and to ensure a fair, transparent investigation took place.

The Office said the case files would be handed to the defence lawyers later today.

"The lawyers will have the opportunity to study the documents of the case that are classified as secret at the Prosecutor’s Office,” the Office said today.

The Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia claimed five men – four current and one former Defence Ministry officials – arranged a sham tender in 2013 to lay a fiber optic cable and procure networking equipment.

The Office claimed 4.1 million GEL was misspent in the tender and the men violated Georgia’s tender laws when they "gave an advantage” to Silknet, one of the country’s largest telecommunications operators. Subsequently the Ministry signed a 6.7 million GEL contract when the services were worth 2.6 million GEL.

The accused, who are now in a pre-trial detention, deny the charges against them.

Georgia’s former Defence Minister Irakli Alasania, who was dismissed by Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili earlier this month, said he had complete confidence in the integrity of his employees.

Garibashvili dismissed Alasania on November 4 after he saidthe criminal investigation into the Ministry of Defence was "obviously politically motivated” and an "attack on Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic choice”.

One day after Alasania’s dismissal, Maia Panjikidze and Alexi Petriashvili, who are allies of Alasania resigned from their roles as Georgia’s Foreign Minister and the State Minister of the Europe and Euro-Atlantic Integration respectively.

Preliminary court hearing of the case is scheduled for December 11.