Convict ‘pardoned by Georgian president’ kills young man and flees country

A convict believed to have recently been pardoned by disputed Georgian President Mikheil Kavelashvili has reportedly brutally murdered a young man in Tbilisi and fled the country.

Tamaz Mtivlishvili, 22, was reportedly murdered by Giorgi Papashvili on 18 February.

On Sunday, the Tbilisi City Court ordered that five suspects be placed in detention, including Papashvili and four others accused of not reporting the murder: Bairam Ali Guseinov, Veriko Kapandaze, Luka Gvenetadze, and Saba Robakidze.

Prosecutor Levan Vepkhvadze has said that Papashvili and Guseinov left the country the next day. The Mtivlishvili family’s lawyer, Eliso Rukhadze, has said that Papashvili and Guseinov, ‘who left the Georgian border, have been convicted and, according to our information, they have recently left the prison facility’.

‘It remains to be clarified whether these are amnestied or pardoned people. According to my information, they were serving time for drug crimes’, she said, referring to Kavelashvili’s decision to pardon more than 600 convicts in mid-January.

However, local media has reported that Kavelashvili’s office denied that the president had pardoned them.

Kavelashvili’s amnesty order and its accompanying statement did not specify the types of crimes committed by those pardoned.

‘Smashed a cutting board over his head’

Media reports have suggested that Mtivlishvili and the five suspects all worked together at a shawarma restaurant in Tbilisi.

Speaking to Ambebi.ge, a friend and coworker of Mtivlishvili said that ‘Papashvili asked the guys who are now detained to steal money from the cash register, and they did it’.

‘He demanded the same from [Mtivlishvili], and when he refused, this became the reason for the fight. No one doubted [Mtivlishvili’s] honesty, he was the most orderly cashier’, she said.

The Mtivlishvilis’ lawyer, Rukhadze, has also said that the conflict between Mtivlishvili and Papashvili was related to a financial disagreement, but did not specify any details about the disagreement.

According to prosecutor Levan Vepkhvadze, Papashvili repeatedly beat Mtivlishvili and bludgeoned him with a cutting board.

Rukhadze has said that she did not believe that the four other suspects were unable to pull Papashvili off of Mtivlishvili, and added that the injuries the young man had sustained also indicated that more than one person had assaulted Mtivlishvili.

In comments to Formula after the trial, Rukhadze accused the four other suspects of helping Papashvili flee the scene of the crime. She also accused them of leaving Mtivlishvili in Papashvili’s apartment and fleeing the scene themselves.

Rukhadze has claimed that one of the suspects left the apartment earlier but did not call the police or ask for help. She added that the suspects, in order to cover up the crime, claimed that Papashvili had threatened to kill them too if they reported the murder.

Mtivlishvili’s family had reportedly been searching for the young man for two days before Papashvili’s mother discovered him dead in her son’s apartment.

Disputed Georgian president pardons 613 convicts

The total number of those pardoned is believed to have exceeded that of previous presidential pardons.

OC MediaMikheil Gvadzabia