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partners, the ruling Georgian Dream party accepted a transitory mixed electoral system for this fall’s parliamentary elections and agreed to do its best to remove suspicions of unfair conduct by the judiciary. The opposition parties later interpreted the second part of the agreement as “releasing the political prisoners”, a term never accepted by Georgian Dream and firmly rejected by President Salome Zourabishvili when she pardoned the two opposition leaders.
Besides urging the government to release the third “political prisoner”, the opposition parties also announced that “in order to commemorate the June 2019 protests in Tbilisi,” a rally will be held on June 20 in the capital, “taking the [coronavirus] epidemiological situation in account.”
Last June, Georgians protested in Tbilisi against a Russian MP being given a ceremonial role during an Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy. The protests turned violent and were used by the opposition parties in stepping up criticism of Georgian Dream. In turn, the ruling party accused the protesters of mounting a failed coup d’etat and put some opposition leaders behind bars—but not Rurua, whose trial stems from a separate set of events.
"We hope that Giorgi Rurua will be released soon and then the parliament will pass the constitutional changes,” the opposition parties said in a statement.
Rurua is charged with thillegal possession and carrying of a firearm. He was denied bail on May 18. He denied the charges, claiming the gun was planted.
2.5​ ​Transparency International Georgia finds no evidence of money laundering in TBC case
There is no basis on which it could be concluded that the co-founders of Georgia’s TBC Bank, Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze, or businessman Avtandil Tsereteli, committed a money laundering offence, either individually or as co-conspirators, Transparency International Georgia has ​concluded​ after consulting a legal assessment related to the case that was prepared by an international expert.
The appropriate charge for the alleged conduct, namely misappropriation of funds, is statute-barred and the practice of prosecuting for money laundering rather than the pertinent charge would be an abuse of process, the expert cautioned in its report.
In other words, the Georgian prosecutors are said to have charged the bank co-founders with money laundering because a charge of misappropriation of funds for the alleged conduct would be no longer legally enforceable owing to the lapsing of a prescribed period under the statute of limitations. The allegations focus on actions that took place as far back as 2008. Khazaradze and Japaridze have claimed that the charges result from a politically-driven prosecution ordered by Georgian Dream ruling party head and oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Following an assessment of Georgian and international laws, the indictment, the facts at issue and accepted international jurisprudence in money laundering cases, the key findings of the expert’s report are that there is no evidence from which it could be inferred that there was an intention to
10​ GEORGIA Country Report ​June 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com