Court of Appeal upholds Bacho Akhalaya's arrest

Today, the Tbilisi Court of Appeal upheld the decision on the pre-trial restriction measure in the form of keeping in custody against Bacho Akhalaya, ex-Minister of Defence and Internal Affairs of Georgia.

Bacho Akhalaya was detained at night on November 7, and he was charged of abuse of power and of illegal deprivation of freedom and torture. Lawyers of Bacho Akhalaya challenged the decision on his arrest.

The lawyers of Bacho Akhalaya requested to change the pre-trial restriction measure for release on bail of 20,000 laris (about 18,000 US dollars) or to discharge on parole of 31 MPs of the "United National Movement" Party (Bacho Akhalaya was a member of the Party, note of the "Caucasian Knot").

The lawyers also presented to the Court as evidence of unreasonable charges against Bacho Akhalaya a video record of speech of one of the witnesses in the case, who said that he had given evidence against Bacho Akhalaya under pressure, the IA "News-Georgia" reports.

However, the Court did not consider the evidence. The Court proposed to bring those data to investigators, since only the issue of lawfulness of pre-trial restriction measure, chosen against the defendant, was considered, the "Georgia-Online" reports.

The lawyers of the ex-Minister of Defence intend to challenge the decision of the courts of Georgia.