A court in Georgia has the prison sentence of the founder and venture capitalist George Bachiahvili, who currently ends up due to alleged investment profits of the former Georgian PM Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is currently ending up due to alleged investment profits.
Bachishvili had previously received a bail of 2.5 million gel ($ 900,000), but the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs reports that the investor had crossed the border to Armenia on 2 March, so that the conditions of the bail were violated.
Judge Giorgi Gelashvili has confirmed the motion of the prosecutor to keep Bachishashvili in custody, and says that the bail violation justifies a stricter detention measure.
According to the Georgian television channel TV PirveliBachishvili has now entered a third country, where the entrepreneur refuses to tell Reuters His current location.
He is accused of darkening 8,253.13 BTC between 2015 and 2017, after he has invested a loan of $ 5 million – secured with the help of the personal funds of Ivanishvili – in Bitcoin mining activities via Bitfury.
Ivanishvili claims that he and Bachishvili had agreed to liquidate the mined Bitcoin in the second half of 2016, after a discussion about the stability of the cryptocurrency market.
Bachishvili has repaid the loan to the E -tent-de Ivanishvili-Cartu Bank-in August and September 2016, and then transferred $ 536,900 about a year later to the director of the bank, NATO Khaindrava.
Nevertheless, Ivanisvili claims that Bachiashvili had misled him about the true returns of the mining operations, and that the Bitcoin who had mined it had been worth millions of dollars.
As a result, Bachishvili was charged on the basis of Articles 182 and 194 of the Georgian Code of Criminal Law, which prohibits the embezzlement of the ownership of another and the money laundering.
Bachishvili had once been an assistant for Ivanishvili, who has an estimated fortune of $ 7.6 billion, or a quarter of GEORGIA GDP.
Ivanishvili was described by Transparency International as the ‘real ruler’ of the country, after he founded the reigning Georgian Dream Party in 2012 and currently served as her ‘honorary president’.
Transparency International has also argued that the case against Bachishvili “clearly and explicitly reflects[s] The private financial interests of Ivanishvili, “and that the” weakness of the position of prosecution and the lack of evidence in this case are so clear that, in every legal system on the basis of the rule of law, such charges would not only be unthinkable, but would never even reach legal proceedings. “
In the same report on the case, the NGO notes at the position of Bachishvili, namely that Ivanishvili has simply advised him to obtain a loan from Cartu Bank, whereby Bachiashvili then invests the loan in Bitcoin -Mybouw.
The only non-testimonial evidence in the case consists of documents relating to the loan and a recording of a telephone discussion about the same loan, in which Ivanishvili Bachishvili recommends overcome the doubts of the bank by offering a higher interest rate.
As such, Transparency International concludes that the charges against Bachiashvili ‘are devoid of both legal and factual grounds’, an opinion that is shared by the legal representatives of the investor, the Amsterdam & Partners established in London and Washington DC.
Senior partner Robert Amsterdam, who spoke in the first hearing of the case in March 2024, described the case as “a travesty” of the right process.
“The state seems to act contrary to the law commissioned by the fickle wishes of Ivanishvili,” he said. “It is not credible for Ivanishvili to claim that he owes money from an eight -year bank loan without evidence, and then the case with criminal prosecution instead of a civil case.”
Bachiashvili would be sentenced to 12 years in prison if it is found guilty.
He said that the charges are meant as a punishment for the public support of Ukraine in his continuous conflict with Russia, something he thinks it has dissatisfied with the pro-Russian Ivanishvili.
Published by Andrew Hayward
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