Court Reduces Prison Terms for Former MoD Officials

The Court of Appeals of Tbilisi re-qualified the embezzlement charges of five former Defense Ministry officials and found them guilty of exceeding official powers in the so called "cable case," reducing their seven-year prison term to one year and six months, according to its January 26 ruling.
 
Despite the ruling, which will be challenged by both defense lawyers and prosecutors in the Supreme Court, the convicts will remain in prison for two more months, until the expiration of their reduced terms.
 
The Court of Appeals said that the penalty, which also involves banning the convicts from taking any official position for a term of two years, will be calculated from the moment of their arrest.
 
One former and four serving officials from MoD and general staff were arrested on October 28, 2014 and charged with misspending GEL 4.1 million in an alleged sham tender in 2013 on laying fiber-optic cable.

The so called “cable case” led to the split within the Georgian Dream (GD) ruling coalition and the firing of Defense Minister Irakli Alasania, followed by resignations of his two allies from cabinet posts. It resulted in Alasania’s Free Democrats leaving the GD coalition in November, 2014. Alasania was denouncing investigation against the MoD officials as “politically motivated”.
 
All five men spent almost eight months in pre-trial detention before being released in June, 2015 after the prosecution dropped its objection against their release. Later, the Defense Ministry reinstated them to their jobs, upon decision of then Defense Minister Tina Khidasheli, though the trial into the case was still underway. In May 2016, Tbilisi City Court found five men guilty of misspending and sentenced them to seven-year prison term, prompting protests of opposition and civil society groups, who slammed the ruling as “unfair, illegal and unjustified.”
 
“The cable case” is the second high-profile case, where embezzlement charges were removed. Ex-mayor of Tbilisi and one of the former leaders of the United National Movement, Gigi Ugulava, was released from prison on January 6, following Tbilisi Court of Appeal’s ruling, which reduced his sentence by three years and three months and re-qualified his embezzlement charges to exceeding official powers.