Georgian central bank restricts access to bank assets, financial transactions to US-sanctioned former Prosecutor General

The National Bank of Georgia on Monday restricted access to bank assets and financial transactions to Otar Partskhaladze, the former Prosecutor General of the country who was last week sanctioned by the United States Department of State for alleged ties with Russia.

The Bank said it had acted to restrict the accounts on the basis of an instruction issued by its President in August that required the domestic financial sector to bring its operation in line with sanctions for individuals in the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control list.

It added the restrictions were the latest examples of the institution’s “full compliance” with the sanctions imposed by Western institutions and governments on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, with a new department at the National Bank supervising the process domestically.

The US State Department imposed sanctions against Partskhaladze on September 14, alleging the Russian Federal Security Service had worked with Partskhaladze to influence Georgian society and politics in favour of the Kremlin.

In addition to Partskhaladze, sanctions were imposed on Russian intelligence officer Alexander Onishchenko, who allegedly helped “his associate Partskhaladze obtain a Russian passport and possibly Russian citizenship”.

Georgian officials reacted to the development by noting Partskhaladze had held “no connection” to Georgian state structures “for the last 10 years” and rejected links between “any individual” associated with Western sanctions and the Georgian state as “speculation”.