Former Defense Minister sentenced to two months in pre-trial detention

Tbilisi City Court has sentenced former Defense Minister Juansher Burchuladze to two months in prison as a preventive measure. The ruling was delivered by a judge following a hearing attended by Burchuladze himself, who stated that he did not agree with the charges.

The State Security Service detained Burchuladze on September 11. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, he faces charges of abuse of official authority and legalization of illegal income.

“As a result of an investigation conducted by the Anti-Corruption Agency of the State Security Service, it was established that in 2023 the then Minister of Defense of Georgia abused his official authority for personal gain and to benefit a relative.

According to the investigation, on his instructions, the then Deputy Minister of Defense and the former Head of the Procurement Department, with the involvement of the minister’s relative, deliberately created a non-competitive environment during the procurement of medical equipment for a military hospital. As a result, unrealistic contracts were concluded, and equipment valued at 2,606,272 GEL was delivered to the Ministry of Defense for 3,940,000 GEL, causing property damage of 1,333,728 GEL to the state.

The investigation also revealed that the former minister, with the assistance of his relative, attempted to conceal the illegal origin of assets acquired through these schemes. In January 2025, he and his wife purchased a plot of land in Spain with a house for 544,000 euros. Since the legal source of the funds was not documented, a fictitious real estate sale agreement in the Tskneti district was signed in 2024 between his wife and a third party. In reality, the property was never transferred; the agreement served only to disguise the origin of the money later used in Spain.

Furthermore, the former minister failed to declare the Spanish property in his March 2025 official asset declaration. Investigators concluded that through the purchase of this real estate, he legalized 1,593,212 GEL in illicit and unsubstantiated income,” the investigative agency said in a statement.

If convicted, Burchuladze faces up to 12 years in prison.