His lawyer says Ezugbaia is prepared to cooperate with the investigation.

The 2 344 km long railway through Georgia is one of the most important transport corridors in Eurasia, and represents the shortest connecting route between Europe and Central Asia.

Georgian Railway is a state company, which was transformed into a JSC on April 12, 2012. It is managed by a supervisory board and has a general director.

Following a decision by the government, the company has obligations in euro. In July 2012, Georgian Railway repurchased 88.99 percent of those euro obligations and replaced them with new euro obligations: nominal USD 500 million, coupon – 7.75 percent, payment – twice a year, term – 10 years.

These new obligations were successfully placed on London Stock Exchange. The emission was implemented through international investment banks Goldman Sachs International, J.P. Morgan Securities Ltd and Merrill Lynch International.

According to data from the first three quarters of 2012, the company had a positive result of 144.5 million Georgian lari, or nearly USD 87.5 million.

This is the second time a head of Georgian Railway has been served charges of embezzlement after there was a change of government. The first time was after the Rose Revolution in 2003, when the government detained Akaki Chkhaidze, former chair of Georgian Railway, and charged him with corruption, but released him after he paid a large fine, the amount of which was not made public.

Ezugbaia, who has been chair of Georgian Railway for the last few years, left Georgia soon after the Ivanishvili government took office. His lawyer says he left to study, but it is unknown where he is studying.

He is now charged with appropriation and embezzlement of state money. The investigative service of the Finance Ministry has found that five contracts were signed between the Georgian Railway and the company Vagonshenebeli since 2008. Georgian Railway wrote an artificially increased amount of money – USD 39 000 for rehabilitation of train cars, but the market price of rehabilitating one train car was GEL 31 000. This caused a loss of GEL 65 million — USD 40 million.

Seven persons from Georgian Railway and Vagonmshenebeli Company Ltd have been detained in the case.

Natia Mogeladze has not commented on why she resigned as head of the body that monitors the financing of political parties. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–Natia Mogeladze, head of the Financial Monitoring Service for political parties, resigned on Wednesday.

According to the State Audit Office, a body subordinate to the Financial Monitoring Service, it was Mogeladze’s own decision to resign.

The Financial Monitoring Service for political parties was created on January 4, 2012, with Mogeladze as chair.

Her name has come to be associated with a number of interventions against current Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition during the election campaign last year, when the monitoring service fined Ivanishvili and members of his coalition with hundreds of millions worth of fines.

After Ivanishvili went into politics, President Saakashvili’s government prepared a set of new legislative regulations which gave an opportunity to fine any party and any of its members for many types of financial transactions.

The Monitoring Service almost exclusively requested the court to fine members of Ivanishvili’s political bloc, and the court usually agreed.

Before coming to her latest job, Mogeladze worked at the Prosecutor’s Office where she is thought to have been close to Zurab Adeishvili, the former justice minister who left the country after the National Movement’s election defeat last year and is now charged in absentia with organizing torture of prisoners.

A few days ago her name was heard in a scandal which broke last week, when a secret video recording was posted on the Internet which showed sex between three persons. The publication of the video is widely perceived as a gross intrusion on privacy, and the case is under investigation.

One of the persons shown in the video claims that it is a fabrication and was posted only because he is in possession of compromising material about certain officials in the Ivanishvili’s government, among them the prime minister’s advisor Gia Khukhashvili, the deputy interior minister and the deputy chief prosecutor.

He further claimed that these three were involved in various business ventures together with Natia Mogeladze and her husband.

Khukhashvili denied this and said that he doesn’t know Mogeladze personally. Mogeladze said the same. She hasn’t commented on her resignation.

Deputy Justice Minister Sandro Baramidze, one of the people behind the bill, says it will free the courts from political influence. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–Parliament in Georgia has overturned President Saakashvili’s veto against legislative amendments about judicial reform.

Those behind the amendments claim that they serve to depolarize the court system.

According to the draft, which has been passed once by parliament, judges will elect the members of the High Council of Justice, a body which controls the courts, through secret ballot. Government officials will not have the right to individually appoint council members.

Sandro Baramidze, Deputy Justice Minister and co-author of the bill, thinks that the new principle for selecting council members will free the court system from political influence.

“The new rule for electing members of the High Council of Justice gives us a guarantee that certain persons will no longer have levers of influence over the court system,” Mindia Ugrekhelidze, former chairman of the Supreme Court of Georgia and former judge at European Court of Human Rights, told DF Watch.

The United National Movement (UNM) said the reason the president used his veto is that the previous members of the High Council of Justice shouldn’t leave yet.

The Venice Commission also recommended that the new rules not be made applicable to serving council members, but the ruling coalition claims that in order to restore justice it is necessary to immediately enforce the new regulations.

An alternative draft bill presented by the president failed to get enough votes in parliament. Instead the majority voted for the previous version of the bill, thus overturning his veto.

Now the bill will be sent back to the president for signing. If he again refuses to sign the bill, the speaker of parliament will sign it and this way enforce it, like what happened with the amnesty law in the beginning of 2013.

“This means that errors in the court system will be corrected. The goal of the UNM was to control the court system, and they did that through mechanisms that are still in force, but this will change after the new bill comes into force,” Ugrekhelidze says.

But UNM claims that the new reform will make it possible for Ivanishvili’s coalition to control the courts.

Akaki Minashvili from the UNM claims that this is an attempt to establish political influence over court system.

Zurab Abashidze. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–Georgia is hoping for an easing of visa rules for those of its citizens who plan to visit Russia.

This was one of the things that came out of a phone conversation between the two diplomats who are handling the political contact between the countries;

Zurab Abashidze, the Georgian Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Relations with Russia, and Gregory Karasin, Deputy Foreign Affair Minister of Russia.

According to Georgia’s Foreign Ministry, Abashidze said he hopes that during his next meeting with Karasin in June, there will be agreement about specific details of simplified visa rules between the two states.

Diplomatic relations between Georgia and Russia were suspended after the war in August, 2008. Since then, there have been held talks in Geneva periodically, with the participation of the international community, to discuss the situation in Georgia’s disputed territories.

After the change of government in the country, Abashidze was appointed to his current post and has so far held two meetings with Karasin, the outcome of which was a decision to allow Georgian products back onto the Russian market.

At their final meeting, the parties noted progress in trade and humanitarian issues.

Abashidze told DF Watch that the next meeting will probably be held in Prague and will deal with steps taken by the parties since the last meeting.

He says in this regards ‘real results are seen’ and these are issues of returning wine, mineral water and agriculture products to the Russian market.

“We also try to get route of Kazbegi and Larsi to function so that those trade relations and export of Georgian product won’t have problems in this regards,” he noted. “Zemo-Larsi-Kazbegi check-point works 24 hours.”

At the previous meeting, Karasin said those in Moscow are thinking of how to simplify visa rules with Georgia, and he now hopes that at the next meeting more details will become clear.

“It is about simplifying visa rules, but not abolishing them for certain categories of citizens,” he said.

The draft bill about court reform was adopted on Thursday. It contained a number of legislative amendments which the government claims will help depoliticizing the courts. The most important change in the reform is that the president and executive government won’t have a right to appoint their own candidates to the High Council of Justice, a body governs the courts in Georgia. Furthermore, the chairman of the Supreme Court will no longer have the right to also chair the High Council of Justice.

After the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission studied the draft bill and gave its recommendations, the bill’s authors adjusted their proposal and presented a revised version of it. But the opposition did not support this draft, and is now demanding that the president blocks the bill.

Giorgi Baramidze, a member of parliament from the United National Movement party, says he hopes that the president will use his power granted by the constitution to block the draft.

The second draft expected to be blocked by Saakashvili is the amendments to the Law on the Occupied Territories.

According to the current edition of the law, a person can only enter Georgia’s occupied territories after obtaining official permission from Tbilisi. If someone violates this condition, it is a criminal violation punished under the criminal code. This law was adopted after the war with Russia in August, 2008, and since then about 400 persons have been detained under this charge; however the majority of them were released after they paid a fine.

Bidzina Ivanishvili’s government claims that many people might not know that it is prohibited to enter breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia without official permission from Georgia and that they might be jailed. That’s why the new bill instead suggests that a person should pay a USD 240 fine for the first time offense, but if it is repeated, he or she will be detained.

MPs have discussed this bill for several weeks, and it should have been adopted last week, but was postponed, as Saakashvili’s party members are against it. Even though the Georgian Dream coalition has enough votes to adopt the law, they are still trying to negotiate. Davit Usupashvili, Speaker of Parliament, says that ‘important laws should be adopted through agreement.’

UNM members are still against the draft and the president is going to use his right of veto for this law as well.

“I remember what the Foreign Affairs Minister of Russia advised to Ivansihvili, to review the law on Occupied Territories,” Irma Nadirashvili from UNM says. “By revising this law, the majority does what he said. That’s why I do not exclude that the president will use his right of veto, but it is for him to decide.”

The third bill is about how to appoint the management of the Georgian Public Broadcaster. The bill aims to avoid politically motivated decision and prevent the GPB from working for the interests of a single party, which some would say it has been doing while Saakashvili held government power, although his party members deny it.

However, recently a member of the UNM appointed a recently dismissed chairman of news department of GPB as gamgebeli (local government head) in one of the regions in Georgia.

Those are the three bills which Saakashvili may block and it is expected that he will, as he has repeatedly expressed criticism of those bills.

In the end of 2012, Saakashvili vetoed an amnesty bill, but parliament overturned his veto and the law went into force in mid-January. Since then, about ten MPs have left his party’s factions in parliament. At present, the ruling coalition will have no problems overturning the president’s veto.

Village Ditsi, close to the de facto border with breakaway South Ossetia. (Radio Liberty.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–The population in the village Ditsi, which is located close to Georgia’s occupied Tskhinvali region, are protesting against the sale of their land to Indians and refuse to let them cultivate it.

Even though the farmers in the village are left without pasture, they protest against the sale for another reason: that it is dangerous to sell lands close to the occupied territory to foreigners, because they might sell those lands to the occupying power.

The population of the village Ditsi confronted the Indians, who purchased the lands in this village and planned to start working. Locals of the village claim that they learned about the sale of pasture land belonging to the village on Wednesday, when Indians started working on the disputed plots. Thursday, the new owners were not allowed to start organizing fruit yards and they filled earth in holes dug for planting trees.

The population of the village think that selling territories next to occupied region to foreigners ‘is equal to genocide’ and they prepare a complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office. In addition, they promise not to let Indians continue working until a court has made a decision in the dispute.

According to Georgian legislation, a foreigner can freely buy agricultural land. This regulation was established by Saakashvili’s government a few years ago, but there were many who were against it. But in this case it is important that the lands were sold by Ivanishvili’s new government, which hasn’t made any explanations about the case yet.

The only thing that is known so far is that the new owners of the lands are in possession of appropriate documents that they have purchased tens of acres of lands on the territory of village Ditsi.

Four Indian companies bought lands in the beginning of December, 2012 from Madli Ltd, a company registered in the town Gori. Madli Ltd had purchased those lands at the end of November, 2012, a few days before selling them to the Indians.

Locals in the village claim that they didn’t have information that the lands were sold through auction or in some other way and they suspect that there were many of violations in the process. They there demand to have the case investigated.

A few days ago, Indian TV company NDTV reported that Indians are going to Georgia for ‘cheap and fruitful lands’, but the local farmers are concerned.

Indians also own lands in other regions of Georgia, mainly in the eastern part.

Georgia’s foreign minister Maya Panjikidze. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–President Mikheil Saakashvili has postponed for a month the signing of a document passed by parliament about confirming the country’s new ambassadors.

Foreign Affairs Minister Maya Panjikidze claims in an interview with DF Watch that the president is dragging the process out on purpose, and she fears that the country may have problems because of it.

Appointing new ambassadors is one of the issues which has required a cooperation between the two main power blocs in Georgian politics, but is still an unsolved problem between the president’s party and government officials. When it came into power, one of the complaints of Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition was that ambassadors were not representing the country as such, but rather the interests of the United National Movement, Saakashvili’s party.

After the change of government, a few ambassadors resigned, including the ambassador to the US. Some of the ambassadors were finished with their tour of duty.

Under Georgian law, the president presents parliament with candidates for ambassadors after agreeing with the foreign minister. When parliament makes a decision, it is enforced after the president signs it.

Panjikidze explains that the foreign ministry presented 19 candidates for ambassador to the president, but he only presented nine out of those to parliament. The president’s administration did not explain why Saaksahvili did this.

Parliament February 20 confirmed those nine ambassadors, including the ambassador to the US and the representative to the EU. The UNM also supported the nine candidates. Now, one month has gone by without the president signing the decision, which means that parliament’s decision is still not in force.

Representatives of the president’s administration told DF Watch that the president has much work to do, but it is not known why hs has not signed this document.

Georgian law doesn’t define any specific time limit for when the president must sign a document in this specific case.

“If he signs it even today, the procedure which the ambassador candidate must go through needs so much time that, in fact, we won’t be able to send new ambassadors until summer,” the foreign minister explains.

She fears that the country might experience some problems because of this. She points out that EU’s Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius is getting closer and there is an ongoing process to agree on the text of an association agreement with the EU.

“This is related to the success of our country’s foreign policy, including towards the EU, NATO and ending the occupation – all these things require a strong diplomatic corps, while the president and his team create artificial barriers so that the diplomatic corps doesn’t work well. This, I think, is anti-state action,” she added.

Valeri Khaburdzania. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–A former security minister who was fired by President Mikheil Saakashvili after the Rose Revolution in 2003 is to found a new political party with a pro-Russian orientation.

Valeri Khaburdzania, who has lived in Russia for the last two years and just came back to Georgia, has been holding meetings with journalists for the last few days promoting his plans.

Before Saakashvili came to power, the Security Ministry used to be a separate body, but was later merged with the Interior Ministry. Khaburdzania was minister in 2003, during the Rose Revolution, and it was thought that he secretly supported the future president and it was because of him that protesters managed to enter the parliament building peacefully without any problems, although he himself has denied this until today.

He remained a minister for a few months after the revolution and later was appointed to the post of Deputy General Prosecutor, but was fired after a few months.

Khaburdzania claims he has good relations with Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, and that he even meets with Putin for dinner organized for small communities.

In January, he spoke about setting up a new party while he was in Russia, and said that it would be a party having a uniquely Russian orientation. He has repeated this idea a few times after coming to Tbilisi. He says he came to Georgia to attend his daughter’s wedding and other family business.

Khaburdzania says he thinks Georgia should join all organizations which Russia will form in the future for economic cooperation or common security goals.

“EU and NATO don’t need Georgia,” he explains.

Khaburdzania doesn’t recognize the occupation of Georgian territories by Russia. He says it is not an occupation, but Russia’s support to separatists.

He excludes cooperation with Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Georgian Dream coalition, because they are too pro-western.

Khaburdzania says he will establish a new party in the next few months and even participate in the upcoming local election in 2014, but doesn’t plan to participate in the president election in October this year, as he thinks there is no point in participating. He says Ivanishvili’s candidate will win for sure.

A spokesperson for the prime minister told DF Watch that Ivanishvili has agreed to put his signature under the letter, but the idea is not Saakashvili’s, but rather originated with Linas Linkevičius, the foreign minister of Lithuania, who is visiting Tbilisi.

Saakashvili and his team have constantly been criticizing Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition for not sticking to the pro-western foreign policy of the previous government. However, the latter has always tried to prove the opposite, at least in verbal statements.

In the thorny political process of cohabitation, where the president and the government represent opposing political groups that constantly argue on almost all issues, both political blocs have tried to show that they make an effort to set their differences aside and cooperate, but so far without any tangible results.

A couple of days ago, the sides failed to reach a principal agreement on the vital issues of constitutional changes and granting amnesty for Saakashvili era nomenclature.

On Monday, Saakashvili and Ivanishvili met face-to-face for an hour, but according to the statements made after the meeting, they failed to achieve any real results.

On Tuesday, after a meeting with Linkevičius, President Saakashvili issued a statement offering his foe to sign a common letter to the West where they would pledge their allegiance to Western values and a pro-Western policy.

“It would be a demonstration of the unity of Georgian politicians,” Saakashvili said. “We want to be a part of Europe, to enter NATO and will put aside all differences when it comes to the future of Georgia.”

At the same time, the press office of the prime minister told DF Watch that the idea was discussed between Ivanishvili and Linkevičius before the latter met with the president. Linkevičius proposed the idea to Ivanishvili and got his consent about the common letter.

According Ivanishvili’s press office, the idea was then proposed to the president, who tried to present it to the prime minister as his own initiative.

Saakashvili said during a press conference on Tuesday eveningthat he was adamant about putting an end to talk about his allegedly luxurious lifestyle and would issue a decree to bar any SSPS officer from coming close to him.

Earlier in the day his spokesperson Manana Manjgaladze said that the president’s decision followed Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili’s ‘personal decision’ to fire SSPS head Temur Janashia.

“In this situation the president sees only one way out – to refuse using guard services. Accordingly, since Tuesday morning special measures aren’t taken for president’s protection,” Manana Manjgaladze said. “This won’t interrupt the president from moving around and meeting with the population.”

Later Saakashvili told TV journalists that moving around without guards wouldn’t create any problems and if necessary he could drive his car himself.

Saakashvili said that the reform of SSPS was overseen and endorsed by the ‘diplomatic corps’, thus good, but his bitter rivals in the government blocked its implementation demanding in return his consent for constitutional changes which should reduce his grip on power.

Parliament Speaker Davit Usupashvili from the Georgian Dream coalition speaks of a quite different scenario. He said that the proposed reform would divide the uniformed SSPS service into different units, while the president, his administration and his family would be granted a separate service fully under the control of the president’s administration.

He added that the constitutional amendments were not discussed in the negotiations.

The speaker also argues that Saakashvili demanded a 1 800 member strong unit for his protection while the government was ready to allocate only up to 400.

Before the defeat in the parliamentary elections on October 1, 2012 and change of government, up to 3 000 officers provided protection for Saakashvili, including the so called external guards, the low ranking officers standing along the whole route of the president’s motorcade.

The new government later passed a 2013 budget which significantly reduces the financing of the president’s administration. http://dfwatch.net/ivanishvili-practically-shuts-down-georgias-security-council-98247