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2.3 Former mayor of Batumi in Georgia jailed for embezzlement
The court of Georgia’s Adjara Autonomous Republic on January 27 sentenced former mayor of Batumi, Giorgi Ermakov, to seven years in prison for embezzlement, Civil.ge reported.
Another former senior official of Batumi City Hall, Archil Vanadze, who was arrested in the same case, was acquitted by the court, while another person, Egraslan Lomadze, was sentenced to one year and 6 months in prison.
The prosecutor’s office of Adjara arrested seven former and incumbent local officials, including Ermakov, mayor between 2014 and 2017, on charges of embezzlement in May 2019.
Other detainees included Deputy Minister of Education, Culture and Sport of Adjara, Bagrat Manvelidze, Deputy Minister of Finance and Economy of Adjara, Archil Vanadze, Deputy Mayor of Batumi, Tengiz Petridze, as well as three senior officials from Batumi City Hall – Egarslan Lomadze, Vladimir Khintibidze and Beka Khalvashi.
According to the prosecutor’s office, an investigation uncovered a corrupt scheme in Batumi Municipality’s tender procedures for the “Cheap House” project in October 2015. All of the detained were members of the tender commission at the time.
The detained are charged with rigging the procurement tender for social housing in favour of a single company – “Convent Georgia” – which did not meet the legal and financial requirements.
“Instead of protecting legal interests of the state, terminating the tender and not concluding the agreement on state procurement with Convent Georgia, the tender commission signed the contract on state procurement worth GEL 4.2mn ($1.5mn),” the prosecutor’s office said. According to the prosecution, the company failed to complete the required works, inflicting damage of over GEL1mn on state accounts.
2.4 Abkhaz opposition leader returns from Russia as frontrunner in leadership election re-run
The opposition leader of the self-proclaimed breakaway Georgian region Abkhazia, Aslan Bzhania, has returned home from Russia and will run in the so-called presidential election scheduled for March 22, Inter Press News reported.
And he will probably win, given that resigned leader of the separatist territory, Raul Khajimba, has indirectly announced that he will not take part following the public protests that resulted in him being overthrown.
Last year, Bzhania was considered one of the favourites due to run in a contest initially scheduled for June 21. The alleged poisoning of Bzhania (never proven) prior to the poll resulted in its postponement until November. The vote was then won by incumbent Khajimba, but the victory was obtained with the perpetration of fraud, the opposition, which holds a robust majority in
8 GEORGIA Country Report February 2020 www.intellinews.com
