PM must declassify “Cable-gate” documents
By Tatia Megeneishvili
Friday, November 21
The Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia released a special statement with regard to the detained officials of the Defense Ministry on November 19.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, statements released by the detainees’ lawyers are lies.
Several employees of the Ministry of Defense are charged with the embezzlement of 4 million in public funds. The case concerns the purchase of cable system from the Silknet Company, which finally resulted in the firing of former Defense Minister Irakli Alasania.
Alasania claims that his employees were innocent, stressing that if the defense lawyers are not provided with all the opportunities to defend their clients he will inform the international community over the violation.
The defense lawyers claim that they are not allowed to work in normal conditions and do not have access to the case materials.
The Prosecutor’s Office stressed that the case was classified by the defense ministry itself under the former head of the body Irakli Alasania. The office states that due to the fact the case is classified, the Prosecutor’s Office could not provide the information to the lawyers, as it lead to a leak of confidential information.
The Prosecutor’s Office has addressed the intelligence service under the Ministry of Interior Affairs regarding the issue.
Meanwhile, Group of Confidence, a team of five lawmakers in charge of providing parliamentary oversight on secret defense and security expenditures and programs, met on November 19 to discuss the case.
After the meeting, the group addressed the Prime Minister to partially declassify the case.
"We have listened to the people involved in the case. There were many questions for which we received answers. The confidence group decided to appeal to the Prime Minister to partially declassify the case materials. We’ll wait for his decision,” stated Sesiashvili.
