Prosecutor's Office responds to lawyer of Khazaradze and Japaridze

The General Prosecutor's Office of Georgia reiterated that the founders of TBC Bank accused of legalizing illicit income and their lawyer were trying to misinform the public.

On August 27, Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze held a joint press conference announcing, that financial Monitoring Service sent a letter to officials in the UK in terms of the anti-terrorist cooperation, informing them about Khazaradze and Japaridze being suspected of money laundering and expressing suspicion about their financial resources in the UK having criminal origins.

After the prosecutor's office accused Japaridze and Khazaradze of spreading false information, Zviad Kordzadze, the lawyer for the founders of TBC Bank, published several documents.

According to the General Prosecutor's Office of Georgia, after they accused Japaridze and Khazaradze of creating and spreading false news, Kordzadze, the lawyer representing these persons, attempted to deny the prosecution's authentic evidence with fake ones. As a reply to the Prosecutor General's statement, that according to case files, the Financial Monitoring Service of Georgia didn’t apply to the British colleagues, Kordzaze published the petition for legal assistance that was sent to the UK and the information received from the UK regarding financial activities, “which allegedly, is the answer to the petition " - reads the statement of the Prosecutor General's Office on August 28.

The prosecution alleges that the two documents have no connection: “The petition for legal assistance was sent to the United Kingdom following the procedures of the Law of Georgia on International Cooperation in Criminal Justice through the channels of international cooperation of the Ministry of Justice. The Prosecutor General's Office of Georgia has not received a response to this petition and the materials so far, and this is well known to the defense as they have been provided with complete case files.”

As for the information received from the UK regarding Khazaradze's financial activities, according to the prosecution, “it was obtained as a result of the cooperation of Financial Monitoring Services through international financial monitoring channel, which has no connection with the investigation, and this letter is not and cannot theoretically answer the answer to legal mediation.”

General Prosecutor's Office said that "the documents published by the attorney of accused Khazaradze and Japaridze, clearly show that the legal assistance application has been submitted on the 3rd of June, 2019 - when Khazaradze and Japaridze had not yet been charged, whereas, in information about financial activities, received from the UK, Mamuka Khazaradze is referred as the accused of money laundering.” According to the prosecutor’s office, this information alone is sufficient for any objective observer to be convinced that there is no connection between two documents.

Prosecutor Giorgi Mikava stated that the Financial Monitoring Service of Georgia did not apply to its British counterparts and on the contrary - the British side informed the Georgian side about the financial activities of the accused.

"This communication was initiated by the British side and I am convinced that this country is truly the highest standard where criminal cases are easily distinguished from a political prosecution," Mikava said. According to him, the statement of Khazaradze and Japaridze is another "false circumstance", as if the communication between the parties is in the framework of anti-terrorist cooperation.

"Even the materials that were published by the lawyer pulled out of context, clearly show that there was no cooperation in the context of any anti-terrorist activity and the word 'anti-terrorist' is not mentioned in any of the documents that Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze had so actively appealed to at their briefing. The above information is well known to the defense, however, even though the case file was made incomplete, deliberately distorted, aimed at misinforming the public by spreading another false story,” the Georgian General Prosecutor's Office said.

“British colleagues are taking this seriously and they cannot imagine that this agency, in this case, is a tool for political persecution,” Japaridze said.

According to him, the state structures continue to fulfill the political order and this attempt is to block their legal funds in the UK. As stated by Japaridze, he and Khazaradze will be happy to cooperate with British services and are ready to show them and prove the legality of each pound.

The bank accounts of Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze have already been seized in Georgia.

The General Prosecutor's Office of Georgia accuses the founders of TBC Bank of collecting $ 16 664,000 in the legalization of illegal income.

Khazaradze and Japaridze were formally charged on July 24 and on July 26, Tbilisi City Court imposed bail of 700,000 GEL on each of them.

Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze call the prosecution's accusation completely absurd.