Defence claims political background of verdict to former MoD head

The court has sentenced in absentia David Kezerashvili, a former head of the Georgian Ministry of Defence (MoD) to five years in prison in order to put pressure on his "Formula" TV Channel on the eve of elections, his advocates assert.

The Supreme Court (SC) of Georgia has found David Kezerashvili guilty of embezzling 5.06 million euros in one of the projects related to MoD's exercises. He was sentenced to five years in prison. This is his first verdict, as earlier the court acquitted him in other criminal cases, the "Georgia Online" reported in the evening on September 7.

The verdict in the "exercise case" has been passed in absentia, Giorgi Gelkhauri, an advocate, has explained. The defence has linked the conviction with the upcoming elections. According to Gelkhauri, this is a form of pressure on David Kezerashvili, who owns the oppositional "Formula" TV Channel. The SC "has missed all the deadlines" for considering the case, the Georgian TV Channel One has quoted the advocate as saying.

The advocate has added that the Georgian SC's verdict will be appealed against at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 8, 2021 at 09:59 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.