Details of Defence Ministry’s procurement case declassified
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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.
Georgia’s Ministry of Defence (MoD ) has responded to the arrest of four high officials for allegedly misspending 4.1 million GEL of state money and giving an unfair pecuniary advantage to a private company through a state tender.
Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili made a special statement at a briefing after his meeting with the coalition majority at the Georgian Dream coalition office this evening, where he announced he had dismissed the country’s Defence Minister Irakli Alasania.
Georgia’s Defence Minister Irakli Alasania believes two criminal investigations related to the Ministry of Defense and general staff of the Georgian Armed Forces (GAF) was "obviously politically motivated”.
Four current and one former high officials from the Ministry of Defence have been arrested for allegedly misspending 4.1 million GEL.
Tbilisi City Court today delivered a verdict into the high profile case involving four serving and one former Defence Ministry officials. The men were found guilty of misspending 4.1 million GEL and sentenced to a seven-year prison term.
Five former Defence Ministry officials who were arrested for allegedly misspending 4.1 million GEL have been released from prison after receiving a pardon from President Giorgi Margvelashvili.