Batumi Police Chief Irakli Dgebuadze, who was accused by imprisoned media founder Mzia Amaghlobeli of humiliation and inhuman treatment, has been transferred to Tbilisi. Amaghlobeli is currently serving a two-year prison sentence for slapping Dgebuadze.
The transfer was first reported on Wednesday by Batumelebi, and later confirmed by the Interior Ministry.
The ministry’s press office told OC Media that Dgebuadze, who had served as Batumi’s police chief since January 2022, had been appointed head of police attachés. A police attaché is a person sent by the Interior Ministry to serve, usually as a security officer, at a Georgian diplomatic mission abroad.
The incident between Dgebuadze and Amaghlobeli, and her subsequent arrest, brought Dgebuadze nationwide notoriety.
Amaghlobeli, the founder of independent media outlets Netgazeti and Batumelebi, was first detained on the night of 11 January after putting a sticker calling for a nationwide strike on a fence outside a police station in the coastal city of Batumi. She had done so in protest against the detention of her colleague, Tsiala Katamidze, for putting up the same sticker on the same street.
Shortly after being released, she was again detained after slapping Dgebuadze during a heated exchange outside the police station.
Throughout the subsequent court proceedings, Amaghlobeli spoke about the circumstances leading up to the incident, including degrading treatment by the police, as well as the abuse she faced following her second arrest.
According to Amaghlobeli, she was spat in the face by Dgebuadze, subjected to verbal abuse, and was denied access to a toilet.
Initially, Amaghlobeli was charged with assaulting a police officer, an offence punishable by up to seven years in prison. After seven months of hearings, on 6 August, Batumi City Court reclassified the charge to the lighter offence of ‘resisting, threatening, or using violence against a protector of public order’ and sentenced her to two years in prison.
Her lawyers appealed the verdict to the Court of Appeals on Thursday.
Amaghlobeli’s case has been widely condemned by critics both in Georgia and abroad as politically motivated, linked to her media work.
Critics have also pointed to the video of Amaghlobeli’s arrest following the slapping incident as early evidence that her punishment was premeditated — the footage showed Dgebuadze insulting and threatening her.
‘I fucking swear, I’ll arrest her under the criminal [code] […] I’ll fuck her mother’s pussy’, Dgebuadze could be heard saying.
After the footage was shown during a hearing in May, Dgebuadze stated that the voice in the recording ‘sounds like’ his. He then added that he might have used obscene language, but only for the purpose of ‘describing the fact’. He did not confirm the actions described by Amaghlobeli, including spitting on her.
In addition to condemnation, Dgebuadze also became the subject of ridicule from critics after he claimed in his testimony that he had ‘felt pain’ as a result of Amaghlobeli’s slap and that his cheek had turned red.
Beatings, insults, and other accusations against Dgebuadze
Amaghlobeli’s case was not the first time Dgebuadze has been accused of misconduct.
In parallel with Amaghlobeli’s detention, another person was also jailed at the Batumi protests — Temur Khatamadze, an ethnic Georgian activist and Turkish citizen who had moved to Georgia years earlier.
Katamadze claimed that during his detention, he was physically assaulted by Dgebuadze and 10 other officers, with Dgebuadze reportedly telling him, ‘You dog and Turk, what do you want in Georgia? Get out of here’.
Ultimately, Khatamadze was placed in pre-trial detention on the grounds that he had no legal basis to remain in Georgia and was deported five months later.
According to another protester detained during the rallies, Malkhaz Iremadze, Dgebuadze insulted him, slammed his head against a wall, and beat him. Batumelebi reported that as a result of the physical assault, Iremadze lost consciousness.
‘Violent police officer Irakli Dgebuadze transferred from Batumi’ — was the headline Batumelebi used for the article about Dgebuadze’s transfer.
Besides in Tbilisi, daily anti-government protests have also continued in Batumi since 28 November, when the ruling Georgian Dream party announced the suspension of the EU membership bid.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
