The Tbilisi City Court has found Megis Kardava, the former head of the Military Police, guilty of misappropriating and embezzling 768,107 GEL from the state budget. He has been sentenced to five years and six months in prison.
According to the prosecution, on May 22, 2012, Kardava, who then served as head of the Military Police Department, approached then-Defense Minister Bacho Akhalaia with a request to “allocate 330,000 GEL to the Military Police under the classified expenditure line item.”
“Following the minister’s approval and the transfer of funds to the Military Police Department’s account, the money was cashed out at a bank and converted into foreign currency on Kardava’s instructions. Kardava subsequently unlawfully misappropriated 200,000 US dollars,” the prosecution stated in a release issued on September 22.
According to the prosecutor’s office press center, the evidence examined in court confirmed that Kardava, “with the assistance of other high-ranking Defense Ministry officials, misappropriated and embezzled a total of 768,107 GEL under the pretext of operational purposes between November 16, 2011, and August 2012.”
According to the agency, to cover up the embezzlement, fictitious documents were fabricated on Kardava’s orders, alleging that the funds had been spent on operational and investigative activities by a Military Police Department unit deployed to Afghanistan.
“On this basis, the funds were written off and entered into the accounting records,” the agency’s press center noted.
Megis Kardava had been hiding abroad for years. Georgian courts of general jurisdiction had previously found him guilty in several cases, including the “prison riot” case, the Navtlughi special operation, and the torture of Colonel Sergo Tetradze.
Kardava had been wanted under an Interpol Red Notice since 2013. He was extradited to Georgia on September 17, 2021.
