Today he did not attend the court trial and remotely, through his lawyer made a statement:

The lawsuit regarding our case has been pending for over two years in court. During a period of three years we have been witnessing how, little by little, gradually, the court and the prosecutor's office feel into the hands of Bidzina Ivanishvili as a tool in the fight against political opponents. If not the persecution of political opponents, then how the case of detention of 27 high-ranked officials which is recognized as unlawful detention under the effective court rulings and the Public Defender (this case is still stored on the shelf at the prosecutor's office and approximately two hundred persons involved in the unlawful detention were not interviewed) can be explained. Interrogation report is still kept at the prosecutor's office and you have a chance to hear the witness's testimony at this court trial as to how and by what means and with abuse of what law the high-ranking officials from the prosecutor's office used to conduct negotiations with us during pre-trial detention at the penitentiary establishment. If not the political persecution how can you call the fact that the City Court, first, suspended the authority of the directly elected Mayor in the middle of the night, through violation of the Constitution without oral hearing, and thereafter, it failed to fulfil the lawful ruling of the Constitutional Court at all. How can you call the fact that during the election campaign the arrested former Tbilisi City Mayor was in the pre-trial detention fifteen months instead of nine months by the efforts of the Court and the Prosecutor's Office and trampling down the Constitution? Following the victory in a fair six-month, the City Court managed to detain the former Mayor within 23 hours under a false denunciative arrest warrant regarding another case. The facts of such actions of the Government against political opponents are very frequent, but I cannot remind about the case of Rustavi 2, the decision delivered by Urtmelidze following the unbearable constraint and pressure in the City Court. The Court considered the case concerning Rustavi 2 with unnatural speed reaching an all-time record. Despite many unbiased and grounded petitions, it failed to give a challenge over the Urtmelidze's case so that he even denied his mother; based on the two-page, false "evidences" signed by dubious experts it delivered an absolutely unlawful and groundless decision against faithful purchasers of property. Due to some reasons it could not claim immediate enforcement of the decision, but soon enough it overstepped the Constitutional Court, violated the Procedure Code and, without oral hearing, based on the absurd substantiations, appointed temporary biased and partial managers with a list of their authorities so far as there is no such concept in the law; this all was legalized by a17-page ruling, which Urtmelidze would not have coped with in such a short time and which envisages censor for media; having seen the anxiety and solidarity of International commonwealth, NGO's and whole society, the Government suspended, through Urtmelidze's Ruling, again clearly intended and partially enforced unlawful action.

Today, everyone can see that this is an order and the prosecutor's office together with the court is actively involved in the business of the Government and Ivanishvili, in order to get rid of the Country's main opposition party, and a space for expressing critical opinion. The order of the people, who are trying to cover their feebleness and inability, offer poorly staged show to people instead of solving social and economic problems. And it is most regrettable and the fact is that Georgia deviates from the western vector, and all these, is clearly evidenced by the reactions and statements of the international community.

I want to declare that we are not politicians, we were committed to serve our City. We can see how hard it is to establish the truth in the court, we can see that the prosecutor's office evidences in this case, is completely feeble and their main task is to find the so-called false witnesses or perjurers, who would accuse Gigi Ugulava. The prosecutor's office from the day of our arrest, requests not to establish the truth, but enforces us to slander innocent person on the basis of false testimony.

Unfortunately, we have two choices either to betray our dignity, conscience, values ?€‹?€‹and give a false testimony under the oath or leave the country. Unfortunately, the pressure exercised by the Government and the prosecutor's office give us no choice. We have chosen the second way, because we do not want to spend 11 years as political prisoners behind bars for the crime that you know and it is obvious we have not committed.