Giorgi Bachiashvili, former head of the Co-Investment Fund and defendant in the Mtkvari HPP construction case, told the court that the charges against him are unfounded. He claimed that holding someone criminally liable for a drilling machine getting stuck in a tunnel is unprecedented.
“The charges do not correspond to any crime. I do not consider myself guilty. I will be the first in Georgia and possibly the first in the world to be held accountable for getting a machine stuck in a tunnel,” Bachiashvili said at the hearing.
His lawyer, Levan Makharashvili, argued that construction of the Mtkvari Hydropower Plant should have been completed years ago, but the deadline was extended due to objective factors — the COVID-19 pandemic and landslides that caused the drilling machine to become stuck. He added that engineering supervision was performed by an external company, which reviewed all plans and geological reports.
Bachiashvili is charged under Part 2 of Article 220¹ of the Criminal Code — failure to perform or improper performance of official duties by a person with special authority that resulted in serious consequences. The offence carries a sentence of 2 to 5 years in prison.
He has already been convicted in two separate cases: misappropriating cryptocurrency belonging to Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, for which he was sentenced to 11 years, and illegally crossing the state border, for which he received 4 years and 6 months.
