The Tbilisi Court of Appeals upheld the decision of the court of first instance in the case of the accusation against the former Minister of Defense, David Kezerashvili, and ordered him to pay EUR of 5 060 000 million euros in damages to the Ministry of Defense.

“As it is known, at the time, by the decision of the Supreme Court, David Kezerashvili was found guilty of embezzlement, while the article of indifference was used in relation to Alexander Ninua.

Therefore, the court did not see the severity of the damage caused by them. Today, the only thing the Tbilisi Court of Appeal could legally do was to annul the decision made illegally by the Tbilisi City Court.

When the plaintiff goes to court and claims that the other party owes him money to compensate him for damages, he is obliged to submit evidence that proves the amount of damages. Neither in the verdict of the Supreme Court, in which David Kezerashvili was convicted for political reasons, nor in any other document, it is not mentioned what was the damage that the Ministry of Defense might have suffered as a result of this fictitious crime.

Therefore, it was not clear to us what the Tbilisi City Court based this calculation on and how it determined the number of more than 5 million euros, which it charged both persons to pay at that time.

Accordingly, even today, it is not clear to me what principle the appeals court was guided by, what document it relies on when it determines that a certain amount of damage has been determined as a result of the crime”, - said Giorgi Mshvenieradze, the lawyer of David Kezerashvili.