Garibashvili's lawyer questions prosecution's failure to investigate letter from Didi Mdinaradze

Lawyer Lili Gelashvili, representing former Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, asks on social media why the Prosecutor's Office of Georgia did not launch an investigation into a letter whose author Garibashvili publicly named as Mamuka Mdinaradze. According to Gelashvili, the content of the letter contained signs of criminal conduct.

According to the lawyer, time has shown that the same team whose interests Garibashvili tried to protect has abandoned him. Gelashvili writes that Garibashvili was charged, arrested and sentenced to 5 years in prison. In his words, Garibashvili did this out of the interests of the team whose prime minister he was twice, and primarily because of Bidzina Ivanishvili. According to Gelashvili, Garibashvili believed that telling the full truth and making any statement could be perceived by society as an act of betrayal.

Gelashvili considers sending a letter to Garibashvili, who is in prison, to be the most depraved manifestation of political persecution and moral pressure. In his view, Garibashvili published the letter, and it asked him to admit to new, not yet existing charges, so that even a 1% chance of his return to politics would be eliminated.

According to the lawyer, the letter was sent in July of this year. In his account, by that time Mkheidze, Tukvadze and Burchuladze had already been interrogated and a verdict had been handed down, but nothing had been said about Garibashvili giving a bribe. Gelashvili notes that, according to the case materials, they were interrogated in August, on the 18th-21st. Therefore he asks how Mamuka Mdinaradze could have known in July that Burchuladze would give testimony against Garibashvili in August. Garibashvili publicly wrote that the letter was sent to him by Mdinaradze.

Gelashvili asks whether Garibashvili may have been slandering. In his assessment, launching an investigation was necessary, especially since every "fact" mentioned in the letter was later carried out word for word.

According to the lawyer, the same letter clearly shows that their interest was not exposing and preventing corrupt acts, but new serious charges, which would become a means of politically neutralizing Garibashvili. Gelashvili writes that his former teammate, who is in custody, was rated highly and loved by the people. In his words, his name was to be equated with bribery and corruption. "Isn't this a classic example of political persecution?" writes Lili Gelashvili.