Controversial MP Quits Parliament

MP Koba Bekauri from the ruling National Movement party said on February 18 that he will quit the Parliament. This announcement comes six months after a scandal involving his involvement in suspected commercial wrongdoings in the Opiza customs terminal erupted.

Although Bekauri denied any wrongdoings, he said that “a seat in the Parliament has never been my goal in itself.”

MP Bekauri’s decision comes after a report was released by the parliamentary investigative commission on February 17, which included the results of a four-month long probe into the MP’s suspected wrongdoings. Although the report says that Bekauri was innocent, several parliamentarians – including ones from the ruling party – questioned the findings of this report. As a result, the Parliament refused to vote for a conclusion of the report.

MP Bekauri’s case also involves a scandal related with the detention of co-owner and anchor of the 202 TV station Shalva Ramishvili last August. Bekauri claims that Ramishvili was extorting a bribe – USD 100,000 – in exchange for pulling an investigative report about Bekauri off the air. Ramishvili, who denies these extortion charges, is currently on trial.

The case may even have further consequences, as leader of the parliamentary majority, MP Maia Nadiradze of the ruling party, accused MP Bekauri on February 17 of “gathering compromising materials” against her and her husband Zurab Chikviladze, who is the chief of the Transport Service Department at the Tbilisi Mayor’s Office.

During his trial, Shalva Ramishvili announced that MP Bekauri was requesting him not to air an investigative report about the Opiza customs terminal and offered evidence allegedly compromising MP Maia Nadiradze in exchange.

“MP Bekauri and people like him are my enemies,” MP Nadiradze said.

The opposition parliamentarians, who have been demanding that Bekauri quit the Parliament for some time already, say that the investigation into the Opiza customs terminal should further continue.

Opiza, a privately-owned customs terminal on the outskirts of capital Tbilisi was built just a few kilometers from another terminal – Lilo 1. The latter was state-owned and operated at full capacity before Opiza was built. It is suspected that Lilo 1 was deliberately bankrupted with the help of some top-level officials.

“The investigation should continue because there are signs that Deputy Foreign Minister Valeri Chechelashvili [the ex-Finance Minister] and Economy Minister Irakli Chogovadze [the ex-chief of state property management] were involved in these wrongdoings,” MP Kakha Kukava said on February 18.

The opposition also claims that the ruling party had no other choice but to pressure MP Bekauri to quit the Parliament, because the latter became notorious because of the scandals involving both the customs terminal Opiza and the detention of Shalva Ramishvili.