Prosecutor General: There Is No Politics in Odesa Searches

Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said that the searches in the offices and house of Teimuraz Nishnianidze, adviser to the Governor of Odesa Oblast Mikheil Saakashvili and former Consul General of Georgia, were lawful.

Governor of Odesa Oblast Mikheil Saakashvili publicly claimed that the searches were conducted for purely political reasons. He contacted the Prosecutor General with a request to immediately withdraw the investigators. Lutsenko had no knowledge about the matter before he received Saakashvili’s call.

Upon consulting with the Investigations Department, Lutsenko informed that the searches were carried out in relation to the fact that adviser Teimuraz Nishnianidze received ₴20 million (about $800,000) in tax rebates, as part of an investigation of a criminal case on unlawfully obtaining tax returns by officials of the Consulate General of Georgia in 2012-2013.

Lutsenko underlined that the investigation had no questions to Governor Mikheil Saakashvili personally and that the actions of the General Prosecutor’s Office included no political component.

Source: Ukrayinska Pravda