Tbilisi Mayor files defamation lawsuit against TV Pirveli journalist

Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze has filed a defamation lawsuit against Maya Mamulashvili, a journalist in the opposition-minded TV Pirveli channel, accusing her of spreading “fake information” about him and demanding 100,000 GEL in moral damages. 

Kaladze’s lawyer Dimitri Gabunia said on Thursday that on June 5 Mamulashvili said in her show that the Tbilisi Mayor had received 60 million GEL from only one tender, claiming that “it was an official information”. 

“The line between defamation and unverified information and providing information to the public was established by international courts a long time ago, and now the court of Georgia must also establish it”, said the lawyer. 

“We are interested in the documentation that journalist Maya Mamulashvili was talking about”,the lawyer added. 

The lawyer did not rule out that in the future, filing a lawsuit against specific media outlets could have a “systemic character”.