Pardoned Georgian officials demand full legal rehabilitation

The five former officials of the Georgia’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), convicted on charges of embezzlement and pardoned by the president, have sent a lawsuit to the Supreme Court (SC), their advocates have stated today.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Giorgi Lobjanidze, Archil Alavidze, David Tsipuriya, Gizo Glonti and Nugzar Kaishauri were detained in late 2014 on charges of embezzling over 4 million laris (about 1.9 million US dollars) and sentenced on May 16, 2016, to seven years in prison each. On January 26, 2017, the Tbilisi Court of Appeal (CoA) changed the charge from "embezzlement of state funds" into "abuse of office powers" and reduced the prison term down to 1.5 years. On January 27, President of Georgia pardoned the five former MoD’s officials.

Despite the pardon, their advocates sent a lawsuit to the Georgia’s Supreme Court (SC) with a demand to cancel the CoA’s decision on re-qualifying the charge. The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told about it today by Soso Baratashvili, one of the advocates.

According to his version, the defendants' guilt had never been proved.

"Should the SC fail to satisfy our lawsuit, we’ll appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)," said the advocate.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.