The former head of the Co-Investment Fund, Giorgi Bachiashvili says that Bidzina Ivanishvili, the key witness couldn’t recall any details and, accordingly, avoided answering questions related to documents and detailed factual circumstances.
“He generally said he was the investor and wouldn’t have loaned money to Bachiashvili. He wanted to present everything as if giving credit to Bachiashvili would have been senseless and impossible. I’ll also add that several threatening statements were made, including about our other contractual and civil law relationships. This concerns certain other structural parts of the fund. He directly threatened me that I might face certain charges there as well. I’m no longer afraid of this, this will be the third case where a civil matter is being examined from a criminal perspective on Ivanishvili’s orders,” noted Giorgi Bachiashvili.
Bidzina Ivanishvili was questioned remotely during the trial of Giorgi Bachiashvili, at the Tbilisi City Court. The session was held behind closed doors.
As Bidzina Ivanishvili’s lawyer, Teimuraz Tsikvadze, told journalists, the court questioned Ivanishvili for over an hour.
“I don’t know what their strategy is, what they were claiming, I haven’t heard, but I can confirm the fact – and you were all here, I think you saw when the court session began. Initially, several motions were reviewed, which took half an hour. It took a little over an hour to question my client, Bidzina Ivanishvili. After this time, neither the prosecution nor the defence representatives, including Giorgi Bachiashvili, had any more questions.
In our opinion, this indicates that the case is very simple. All circumstances, evidence, and testimonies confirm that my client is the investor in this case. I repeat once again, when you don’t have money, collateral, and don’t take on investment risks, no one can call you an investor,” stated Teimuraz Tsikvadze.
Moreover, according to prosecutor Mikheil Sadradze, today’s testimony was crucial evidence, as it clearly confirmed both the misappropriation of Bitcoin and money laundering.
“Everything was explained in detail, clarified, pointing to specific factual circumstances, all the essential circumstances that are, in turn, documented, these relationships are documented. I’ll repeat once again that today’s testimony was crucial evidence that fully aligns with both all witness testimonies taken so far and the documents,” stated Mikheil Sadradze.
The charges against Giorgi Bachiashvili relate to actions carried out in 2017. Specifically, according to the prosecution, Bachiashvili only transferred $536,900 to the investor instead of the full profit from the invested amount and illegally appropriated the remaining 8,986 Bitcoins belonging to the investor, which at the time of misappropriation was valued at up to $43 million.
Giorgi Bachiashvili does not plead guilty to the charges. This offence carries a prison sentence of nine to twelve years.
