Acting Gamgebeli of Chokhatauri Municipality sues Guria Moambe

Gela Bochikashvili, www.media.ge

Gamgebeli of Chokhatauri Municipality Tamaz Jincharadze has turned in a lawsuit against Guria Moambe regional newspaper to Ozurgeti regional court and has requested GEL 5 thousand compensation as moral loss compensation, which, as Jincharadze has claimed, he has faced due to a slanderous article published by the newspaper. 

8 July Guria Moambe (Ozurgeti, western Georgia) published an article based on a story told by a “eyewitness” which read that acting Gamgebeli driving a vehicle under influence of alcohol, hit cattle on a road and sold meat of the killed cattle in local stores.  Day before the article was published Guriis Moambe website also published information that Tamaz Jincharadze has interest in meat business. 

Acting Gamgebeli told Media.ge that he appealed to court after the newspaper refused to correct the slanderous information published by it. According to him, none of the articles are true.

 

“Everything has limits; these people write whatever they want,” Jincharadze said.

 

“[Tamaz Jincharadze] let his driver to drive the car and took the meat to local meat processing points in Ozurgeti; this information was provided to us by eyewitnesses and the meat processing factory staff,” publisher and Chief Editor of Guriis Moambe Vladimer Menabde said. 

29 July Guriis Moambe lodged a response lawsuit to court referring to Article 18 of the Law on Freedom of Speech and Expression according to which “in case of clearly baseless lawsuit on slander with the purpose of illegally restricting freedom of speech and expression, respondent side has the right to request financial compensation within reasonable limits from the applicant.”

 

Vladimer Menabde told Media.ge that the newspaper requests the same amount of compensation – GEL 5 thousand. 

Newspaper lawyer Kakha Chavleshvili told Media.ge that the Court hearing date has not been scheduled yet.