Tbilisi City Court has sentenced former Georgian Defence Minister Irakli Okruashvili to eight months in jail for failing to appear before a parliamentary commission created to investigate the opposition.
The verdict also included a two-year ban on holding public office. Okruashvili was already in pretrial detention at the time of his sentencing for refusing to pay the bail set by the court in the same case.
A total of eight people, including a number of opposition leaders, have been detained for failing to appear before Georgian Dream’s parliamentary commission. Seven of them have already been sentenced — Okruashvili was the last to be handed down his verdict.
Okruashvili has a long and eventful history in Georgian politics, though he has struggled to remain politically relevant in recent years.
He served in a variety of roles during the tenure of former President Mikheil Saakashvili and his United National Movement (UNM) party, including as Interior Minister and Minister of Defence until 2006. In 2007 he went into the opposition and subsequently faced criminal charges, before going into exile in France. He returned to Georgia in 2012.
Okruashvili was again arrested in 2019 and sentenced to five years in prison for ‘organising group violence’ during the Gavrilov’s Night protests. He was pardoned by Georgia’s fifth president Salome Zourabichvili in 2020.
While already in pre-trial detention for boycotting the commission, new charges brought against Okruashvili. According to his lawyer Mamuka Chabashvili, the case is related to an incident that occurred years ago — he did not provide any further details.
A co-leader of the opposition Ahali party, Nika Gvaramia, was the latest to be sentenced prior to Okruashvili on 1 July, receiving eight months.
On 27 June, another leader of the Ahali party, Nika Melia, and former MP Givi Targamadze were arrested and sentenced to eight and seven months, respectively.
Giorgi Vashadze, leader of the Strategy Aghmashenebeli party, was sentenced to seven months on 24 June.
The day before, on 23 June, the court sentenced Girchi — More Freedom leader Zurab Japaridze to seven months in prison on the same charges. Just a few hours later, Lelo leaders Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze were given eight months each.
The sentences also included a ban from holding public office for two years.
The anti-UNM commission
The commission was set up in February ostensibly to investigate the UNM’s time in power, following repeated pledges by Georgian Dream to punish the formerly ruling party.
Initially, its mandate was limited to the UNM’s years in government (2003–2012), but was later expanded to cover the period up to the present day — effectively giving Georgian Dream free reign to target virtually any opposition figure.
Numerous opposition figures have boycotted the commission, refusing to recognise its legitimacy, as well as that of the current parliament, which has also been boycotted by major opposition parties following the disputed 2024 parliamentary elections.
Criminal cases were launched against those who refused to attend the commission’s hearings — if found guilty, those charged could be fined or sentenced to up to a year in prison. They could also be banned from holding public office or engaging in certain activities for up to three years.
On Monday, it was announced that the commission will once again refer the cases of politicians — Gvaramia, Khazaradze, and Vashadze — to the Prosecutor General’s Office. Those three were summoned to appear before the commission again after their arrests but refused to participate, this time from prison.
Georgian Dream has openly declared that it intends to use the findings of the parliamentary commission to file a case with the Constitutional Court seeking to ban the country’s main opposition parties — a promise the ruling party made to its voters ahead of the 2024 elections.
The ruling party has maintained that all major opposition groups operating in the country are satellites of the UNM and should no longer be allowed to exist.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
