Defendants in case on help to Saakashvili released on bail

The court released four persons accused of facilitating a secret border crossing by former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that on October 1, 2021, Mikhail Saakashvili announced that he was in Georgia. The former Georgian President was arrested the same evening. On October 20, 2021, he was charged with illegally crossing the state border. Elgudja Tsomaya is also accused of illegally crossing the border and of helping Mikhail Saakashvili to do that. Giorgi Narimanidze, Zurab Tsotsoriya, a port employee in Poti, and his son Shalva were also accused of facilitating illegal border crossing. All of them were arrested in October 2021.

The Tbilisi City Court changed the pre-trial restriction measure to bail for four persons arrested in the case on illegal crossing of the Georgian border by Mikhail Saakashvili. Elgudja Tsomaya, Tsotsoriya father and son, and Giorgi Narimanidze are to be released from prison on bail of 5000 laris (about 1623 US dollars), the “Georgia Online” news agency reports today.

At a court hearing, prosecutor Levan Vepkhvadze explained that the defendants pleaded guilty, so the prosecutor’s office consented to the defence motion. “The defendants confessed to committing a criminal act, and accordingly, the prosecutor’s office consented to the motion filed by the defence,” the “News Georgia” quoted prosecutor Levan Vepkhvadze as saying.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on January 20, 2022 at 04:51 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.