prosecution

It added that UBS "offered Hayes up on a silver platter" to be prosecuted in both the US and the UK, and that those prosecutions were "engineered by UBS's intentional false and misleading disclosures".

He said he always knew the case would be "a challenge" but that he had been "trying to ensure that we could support a successful prosecution".

Secret Witness is offering a $5,000 cash reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the suspect.

But the case against Garibashvili is the first prosecution of a senior member of Georgia's governing elite, and it comes amid the ruling party's authoritarian pivot away from the West.

The director of public prosecutions has said the China spy case collapsed because a top national security official could not say the country had been classed as an "enemy" when the Conservatives were in power.