Kezerashvili will look after him – UNM chair

Levan Khabeishvili, the chair of the United National Movement opposition party, on Monday responded to the latest investigation by BBC that had linked the country’s former defence minister David Kezerashvili in the UNM government with a scheme defrauding European pensioners, and said the wanted former official would “look after him”. 

 

Earlier this year Kezerashvili  was convicted for embezzlement of the defence ministry funds while in office by domestic courts.  

 

Khabeishvili claimed Kezerashvili, who owns the control-share in the opposition-minded Formula channel in Georgia and reportedly funds opposition groups and NGOs, would answer questions against him.  

 

He noted “it is better” for Georgia to “look after” the “illegal influence of Russian oligarch” Bidzina Ivanishvili on the Georgian government, in reference to the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party and the former PM, “as a threat to Georgia’s EU integration” and the US’s decision earlier this month to impose sanctions on four judges for alleged corruption. 

 

He also claimed the business people mentioned in the BBC investigative piece had been associated with the GD authorities and had offices in central Tbilisi, with “no restrictions” imposed on them inside the county.