Justice

At one of the meetings with Bidzina Ivanishvili we talked about the revival of Georgian tobacco, where the readiness was expressed to sponsor the project from the fund managed by Giorgi Bachiashvili – Levan Kipiani

At one of the meetings with Bidzina Ivanishvili we talked about the revival of Georgian tobacco, where Ivanishvili said that he liked the idea and expressed his readiness to sponsor the project from the fund, which was administered by Giorgi Bachiashvili – Levan Kipiani, former minister of sports of Georgia, said in the testimony to prosecution on the 5^th of October.

As Levan Kipiani says, there was the idea of reviving Georgian tobacco, in which Vano Chkhartishvili should engage as the partner, adding the idea included the cultivation of Georgian tobacco and afterwards the manufacture of tobacco products.

“In that period, the companies operating on the business of Georgian tobacco production, manufactured comparatively low quality tobacco, which was intended on the low budget segment of smokers in Georgia. The idea of the business was the following – tobacco should be planted on a very vast territory and from those plantations we should produce cigarettes and cigars of high quality on the basis of the tobacco cultivated in Georgia, which would be intended for export. It was a very expensive project worth of about 20 000-dollar, so we decided to ask BIdzina Ivanishvili for assistance, whom we introduced the idea; he liked the idea and promised to help, but as far as the business was about the development of Georgian manufacture and Zaza Okuashvili and Ivane Chkhartishvili were already operating in this sphere, the project would be prospective if both cigarette makers joined it. According to the project, Vano and Zaza would enter the project with 20-20% and their investment should be about 2-2 million USD, the remaining funds should be invested by Bidzina Ivanishvili”, - Levan Kipiani said.

He also confirmed his second meeting with Zaza Okuashvili and Bidzina Ivanishvili, where Bidzina Ivanishvili expressed his intention to sponsor the project from his own funds.

“The project would be sponsored from the fund which is administered by Giorgi Bachiashvilii. Two meetings were held. The first meeting was attended by Giorgi Gakharia, Bidzina Ivanishvili, Zaza Okuashvili and me, while the second meeting was no longer attended by Giorgi Gakharia. As I mentioned, the meetings were related to the development of Georgian tobacco makers and cigarette manufacture”, - Levan Kipiani said.

When asked “did you perform any action for launching that business?”, Kipiani said: “I started to search for a land plot in Lagodekhi and Ajara region, where we could revive tobacco manufacture”