Imedi TV, Georgia
Oct 12 2007

NGO accuses Georgian president’s uncle of dubious deals

[Presenter] Freedom Institute [NGO] has accused [Georgian] President
[Mikheil Saakashvili’s] uncle Temur Alasania of corrupt deals.
Members of the NGO devoted a special meeting to this issue. [News
programme] Kronika’s correspondent Tea Sichinava attended the
briefing. She is live on the air now. Tea, what specific accusation
is at issue?

[Correspondent] The Georgian president’s uncle Temur Alasania has
invested money in the gold business with former Russian Energy
Minister Sergey Generalov’s support and money on the territory
disputed by Armenia and Azerbaijan. Freedom Institute member Levan
Gogichaishvili submitted this information some time ago referring to
an article by John Helmer. We were told here that John Helmer is an
expert who was previously Jimmy Carter’s assistant. This article
provides quite a lot of details of the situation in Armenia around
one of the gold companies and mentions Temur Alasania and Sergey
Generalov together. Levan Gogichaishvili has described this as double
standards, which he said has angered Azerbaijan most of all. He also
noted that the current events have the same overtones for Azerbaijan
as the inflow of Russian capital into Nagornyy Karabakh and Russian
investments in Abkhazia for the Georgians.

[Gogichaishvili, speaking at the briefing] When President Saakashvili
spoke at the United Nations, making his statement on some Russian
group that had been found [investing in Abkhazia], he, at the same
time, had sent his uncle to Russia, where this money was raised.
Generalov himself is involved in transportation business, but he has
a partner – Proganenkin [name as heard] – who is presumably involved
in these affairs and is Mr Temur Alasania’s partner too.

Azerbaijan claims that this territory belongs to it and regards it as
occupied territory. In the meantime, a Georgian group invests money,
which effectively means encouraging separatism in the region. The
latest events and reports, saying Georgia’s negotiations with the
Azerbaijani government on energy resources have been thwarted on a
lot of occasions, were precisely due to the group’s having
shamelessly invested its capital on the territory that Azerbaijan
regards as its own. This effectively means encouraging separatism,
double standards, and the exposure of the involvement of the
president’s family in corrupt deals with Russians.

[Correspondent] These statements have already found response in the
Georgian parliament. Majority members said that members of the
Freedom Institute will simply have to prove and substantiate these
accusations. As regards unproved and unspecified statements, majority
members referred to [former Georgian Defence Minister] Irakli
Okruashvili’s example.

[MP Vakhtang Balavadze] Where do they have this information from?
They should have concrete facts or arguments. Otherwise, any person
can say anything about any other person. We have already become
accustomed to this. The opposition does not shun such things. I would
like to remind them that Okruashvili too said things but later he
admitted that this was not so.

[Correspondent] One more detail from John Helmer’s article: A
criminal suit was brought in Armenia against the former owner of the
company that is now owned by Russians and Georgians. However, we
learn from the article that the criminal suit has been suspended now.
The author believes that the Russia factor has played a major role
here.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress