17 December 2010, 23:10
Georgia: bosses of Forestry Agency, Ministry of Ecology, detained on corruption charges
Corruption and money laundering were the main reasons for detention of Papuna Khachidze, director of the Forest Agency of the Ministry of Ecology of Georgia, and Georgi Bagaturiya, head of the GIS Service of the Forest Agency. This was announced by David Sakvarelidze, General Public Prosecutor of Tbilisi.
According to Mr Sakvarelidze, in 2009, Papuna Khachidze allotted to the companies, owned by relatives of Bagaturiya, 500,000 laris and concluded an agreement with these companies on conducting of forest inventory for a bribe of 20,000 laris, of which he received 5000 laris before his detention.
The Prosecutor's Office estimates the damage inflicted by the detainees to the state budget of Georgia as 2.7 million laris (about 1.54 million US dollars). In case of confirmation of their guilt, they may be imprisoned for up to 11 years, the IA "News-Georgia" reports.
