Cable case: President pardons former defence officials

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.

Margvelashvili’s Political Secretary Pikria Chikhradze announced the presidential pardon yesterday evening shortly after which the prisoners were released.

"The Prosecutor’s Office failed to properly substantiate the charges, which was criticised multiple times by both the Georgian and international community”, Chikhradze said, voicing the president’s position on the case.

"Taking this into consideration, the President has decided to grant a pardon to these people”.

This high-profile case was commonly referred to as the ‘cable case’.

In May 2016 Tbilisi City Court delivered a guilty verdict for the case and sentenced the five men to a seven-year prison term.

The five officials were first arrested on October 28, 2014 for their alleged role in a sham procurement in 2013 where they manipulated a tender to the advantage of a private fiber-optic cable company.

After their arrest, the five men spent almost eight months in pretrial detention before being released in June of 2015. After their release four were reinstated to their jobs by Defence Minister Tinatin Khidasheli despite the fact their case had not yet come to an end. On May 26, 2016 the five men were again arrested.

Earlier this week the Tbilisi Court of Appeals requalified the embezzlement charges of the former Defence officials and found them guilty of exceeding official powers. This reduced their seven-year prison term to one year and six months.

The convicts had already served a majority of this sentence. Had they not received a presidential pardon, they would have served only two more months.