March 7, 2019
Tbilisi City Court
Judge Ketevan Kuchava has ruled that citizen Lasha Tugushi does not owe Mr. Giorgadze an apology or a retraction of a grossly slanderous article, not because the article did not make statements that were entirely false or because the false information was not defamatory but because Mr. Giorgadze’s legal counsel did not see the defamatory article within one hundred days of its publication.
Citizen Tugushi, who is the editor in chief of “DF Watch” website, disseminated fake news in Georgian and English, alleging that Mr. Giorgadze was “tried…convicted in 1997… and sentenced to 17 years”. This is a total fabrication. Mr. Giorgadze has never been convicted in any court of any criminal activity and therefore never sentenced. Furthermore, in the English language publication of the same article citizen Tugushi referred to Mr. Giorgadze as “public enemy number one” which, in his interview to “Interpress News” website, he explained to mean “an idiom used to describe someone after they have committed a crime”. The legal counsel contacted citizen Tugushi as soon as we became aware of this gross lie and informed him that Mr. Giorgadze has never been convicted, explained to him what presumption of innocence is and requested he retracts the falsehoods - on two occasions! (Note, the interview to“Interpress News” with his definition of “public enemy” was given after we sent him the aforementioned emails.)
Citizen Tugushi chose to ignore the legal counsel’s clarifications and thus we were forced to take matters to court. During the trial the defendant failed to prove his false claims while Mr. Giorgadze’s counsel produced a letter from the Ministry of Justice confirming that Mr. Giorgadze had no criminal record. Citizen Tugushi then proceeded to argue that there is a hundred day statute of limitation on defamation lawsuits; he argued that we should have sued him within one hundred days of when the article was published, grossly distorting the law, which in fact states the defamed individual can sue one hundred days after he becomes aware of the defamation. This became the point on which Judge Ketevan Kuchava decided to base her unlawful ruling. The legal counsel took action as soon as the article was brought to our attention. The defamatory article in question was published on July 23, 2016, it was brought to legal counsel’s attention on November 18, 2016, on the same day an email was sent to citizen Tugushi informing him of errors, a follow up email was sent on November 29, 2016 and the lawsuit was filed on December 27, 2016 - 155 days after the publication of the defamatory, fake news article. Given “DF Watch” is not a well known or followed news source in Georgia and is not part of the mainstream media, it is thus absurd to have expected that we monitor every article it publishes, let alone in English. What is further absurd is that the Judge decided to distort and then prioritize a technical legality over the immeasurable damage that an unprofessional oversight of code of press ethics and assertion of a criminal conviction that never took place, can have on the defamed and their family members.
When challenged in the press about this lawsuit citizen Tugushi always changes the subject never addressing the fact that he lied about the non-existent conviction and sentencing, in one such example, in an interview with “Interpress News”, Tugushi stated that Mr. Giorgadze is a “Russian general”, hoping that making another false claim and the use of the word “Russian”, miraculously make the previous defamations true or excusable. Mr. Giorgadze is a Georgian citizen and became lieutenant-general in Georgia while serving as Chief of Georgian Security. Tugushi does not hesitate to stoop lower and lower with each statement making it beyond clear that his personal/political hostility is the prime motivation for the malicious lies he spreads. Furthermore, Tugushi is not only a liar but a hypocrite; while he is too eager to call others “foreign agents” he unreservedly receives 100% of his funding from two foreign agencies - German (Friedrich-Elbert Foundation) and American (Open Society Foundation) - with no apparent sense of self awareness or irony.
With the lies against Mr. Giorgadze, citizen Tugushi has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that he is not a source of reliable information, that he does not respect human rights, that he does not respect the truth, that he does not respect evidence, that he does not respect the law and that he knowingly and maliciously disseminates fake news. Furthermore, the defamation and the lies Tugushi engages in is demonstrative of an unhealthy obsession he seems to have of Mr. Giorgadze, which is rather disturbing, ridiculous and cowardly given Mr. Giorgadze is not a government official, doesn't make any policy decisions or even lives in Georgia. We do not know whether Lasha Tugushi is suffering from hallucinations, delusions or is merely a malicious pathological liar but it is clear that people in their right mind do not make up and convince themselves of legal rulings that never happened, let alone insist on them even after they have been presented with the evidence to the contrary. (The maliciously misleading article in question is still up on “DF Watch” website).
As for Judge Kuchava, she predictably did not hesitate to show blatant bias. This lawsuit was a litmus test for the legal counsel to gauge the independence of Georgian judiciary and to see whether politically persecuted individuals stand a chance of justice in domestic courts. Alas, once again it has been shown that the Georgian judiciary has not shifted much since the days they took part in initially enabling the politically motivated persecution of Mr. Giorgadze. We can only fight, case after case, against this political persecution and hope that the Georgian courts that are passing political judgments on our client stop being political lackeys and start ruling on points of law, to serve what they were appointed to serve - blind justice!
Judge Ketevan Kuchava’s ruling has been appealed in the Tbilisi City Appeals Court pending hearing.