Prosecutor’s Office appeal on Cable Case is no longer top secret
By Tatia Megeneishvili
Friday, June 12
The Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia removed the top secret status from its appeal regarding the so-called Cable Case through which several employees of the Defence Ministry (during Irakli Alasania's tenure) are in jail.
On June 5 the Tbilisi City Court met the demand of the defence side and the evidence of the Prosecution concerning the commodity and engineering expertise was recognized as groundless. The defence side states that it was the major piece of evidence for the Prosecution. The Prosecution appealed the verdict to the Court of Appeals. However, the content of the appeal was confidential.
According to the representative of the Prosecutor’s Office Jarji Tsiklauri, removing the status was up to the counterintelligence office.
Tsiklauri said that the Prosecutor’s Office removed the top secret status from the whole cable case earlier, but the lawyers demanded the closure of trials as the case included confidential materials.
“We separated secret materials from non-secret, so that the court session was public. However, after the demand of lawyers, case was closed down and the following events were conducted as top secret. The court decision, which we appealed, also was announced on the closed session and we appealed the court’s verdict through a confidential method,” stated Tsiklauri.
Defence barrister Soso Baratashvili responded to the Prosecutor’s Office. He said that after removing the top secret status from the appeal the defence side will be able to work in normal conditions and reveal the drawbacks of the Prosecution.
“Prosecutor’s Office had to remove the status since they decided to appeal the court’s decision. Only 1% of the whole text is encoded. Prosecutor’s Office just tried to cover how feeble their evidence really is. From today we will be able to publish the document and show the public that the Prosecution has no real evidence,” stated Baratashvili.
Leader of the Free Democrats Irakli Alasania thanked media representatives and Non-governmental Organizations (NGO) and said that status was removed because of public pressure.
“Now they will not be able to manipulate anything any further. In my opinion this is our victory. Now I am waiting for the Court of Appeals’ decision. The session must be free from any kind of influence,” stated Alasania, who was sacked from the ministry post through the statements made after the imprisonment of his employees. The then-Defence Minister said that Georgia’s Western course was at risk.
The Chief Prosecutor’s Office detained five officials of the Ministry of Defense on October 28, 2014. They stand accused of embezzlement of 4.102,872 GEL from the state budget. The prosecutor’s office became interested in one of the state projects which involved Silknet, a leading telecommunications company in Georgia.
The Chief Prosecutor’s Office claims that former Defence Ministry officials, who are currently in pre-trial detention, arranged a sham tender in 2013 to have a fibre optic cable and networking equipment installed for a Silknet contract worth 6.7 million GEL contract with the Ministry of Defence, though the rendered services were worth only 2.6 million GEL.
