A Tbilisi City Court has handed down a ten-year custodial sentence to Juansher Burchuladze, Georgia\u2019s former Defence Minister, along with a two-year ban from holding public office. Judge Irakli Khuskivadze delivered the verdict this evening.<\/p>\n
By order of the court, Burchuladze has also been stripped of his assets, including a plot of land and a house in Spain, as well as a property and parking space in the Daba Tskneti.<\/p>\n
Alongside Burchuladze, his former deputy at the Defence Ministry, Giorgi Khaindrava, and Burchuladze\u2019s brother-in-law, Vasil Mkheidze, were each sentenced to eight years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
The former head of the Defence Ministry\u2019s procurement department, Vladimer Ghudushauri, reached a plea agreement with prosecutors two weeks ago. Under its terms, he received a four-year suspended sentence, a fine of 10,000 lari, and a one-year ban from public service.<\/p>\n
Burchuladze had faced charges under Article 194(3)(g) and Article 332(2) of the Criminal Code, covering abuse of official authority and money laundering, offences carrying a sentence of between nine and twelve years. In total, he stood accused of laundering 1,593,212 lari in unlawful and unaccounted income. According to the charges, in 2023, Burchuladze, acting in concert with his deputy, a relative, and the then-head of the Ministry\u2019s procurement department, supplied a military hospital with medical equipment at an inflated price of 3,940,000 lari rather than the actual value of 2,606,272 lari, causing the Ministry a loss of 1,333,728 lari. Furthermore, investigators established that in March 2025, Burchuladze and his wife purchased property in Spain for 544,000 euros. To conceal the true source of these funds and give the transaction an appearance of legitimacy, the couple entered into a fictitious sale agreement with a third party regarding a property in Tskneti.<\/p>\n
Ghudushauri and Khaindrava were charged with the large-scale embezzlement of public funds, whilst Mkheidze faced charges of aiding and abetting the same. All were prosecuted on charges of large-scale embezzlement of Defence Ministry funds by an organised group acting in concert and exploiting official positions, as well as influence peddling. These offences are punishable by between seven and eleven years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Tbilisi City Court has handed down a ten-year custodial sentence to Juansher Burchuladze, Georgia\u2019s former Defence Minister, along with a two-year ban from holding public office. Judge Irakli Khuskivadze delivered the verdict this evening. By order of the court, Burchuladze has also been stripped of his assets, including a plot of land and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":85386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170,169],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-138419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-justice","8":"category-news-of-the-day"},"yoast_head":"\n