Justice
The Hearing on the Case of Iberia TV Postponed again Due to non-appearance of Defendants
The hearing on the case of Iberia TV forceful seizure was postponed again as the defendant party did not appear at the Tbilisi City Court today.
As the representatives of the defendants explained, today the court had to interrogate witnesses – Koba Kvantaliani, Grigol Giorgadze and Kibar Khalvashi, however, none of them appeared at the court.
The defendant, Giorgi Latsabidze defined that his lawyer this morning received a message via e-mail from Koba Kvantaliani, who wrote that he would not attend the hearing because he had to take his child to physician.
As for the deputy minister of IDPs, Grigol Giorgadze, according to Latsabidze, the witness was sent the notice to two addresses obtained by the defense. As the defendant explained, the address of residence, indicated by him in the minutes of examination was qualified as incorrect by the Georgian Post, while the second address was obtained from the property declaration of Giorgadze, though the notice was not served on the second address either.
As for the third witness in the case, Kibar Khalvashi, the defense explained that they did not know exact addresses of the businessman either in Germany or Georgia and therefore, the notices were not sent to Khalvashi.
It should be noted that Ioseb Mgeladze’s name is also found among the list of witnesses, which could not be summoned by the defense to the court for the past sessions either.
To resolve the problem of non-appearance of the witnesses at the court, the lawyer of defendant Zurab Adeishvili, Shota Kakhidze presented a motion to appoint the next hearing for September. He said most of the witnesses could be leaving the city for the summer and this might become the reason of non-appearance at the court.
Prosecutor of the case Emzar Gagnidze disagreed with the motion and said it was already the third occasion, when the defense failed to summon witnesses to the court, saying the party was evidently delaying the proceedings.
“The proceedings must not be postponed for September. They should either publish the testimonies by these witnesses, or somehow provide their appearance at the court”, - Emzad Gagnidze said,
Judge Aleksandre Iashvili rejected the motion on postponing the proceedings for September and called on the defense to apply to relevant measures for ensuring that the witnesses would come to the court for the next hearing.
Finally, the judge postponed the hearing for 14:30, the 31st of July.
The prosecutor investigated the case of forceful closure of Iberia TV and seizure of its broadcasting license in February 2016. Former prosecutor general Zurab Adeishvili and his deputy Giorgi Latsabidze have been prosecuted for the crime.