Georgian opposition figure Aleko Elisashvili has been arrested for attempting to set fire to the Tbilisi City Court’s chancellery. If found guilty on terrorism charges, he could face 10–15 years in prison.
At Monday’s court hearing, Elisashvili, a member of the opposition group Lelo — Strong Georgia, was placed in pre-trial detention. According to RFE/RL, Elisashvili’s lawyer, Giorgi Rekhviashvili, said the Prosecutor General’s Office made him sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Georgia’s Interior Ministry announced Elisashvili’s detention on Saturday. The ministry stated that earlier in the morning, the politician had ‘attempted to set fire to the Tbilisi City Court chancellery building’.
The investigation claims that Elisashvili broke into the chancellery by smashing a window with a hammer. Footage purportedly showing Elisashvili that night shows a masked man wandering around, before cutting to footage of him pouring petrol inside the building, including on desks, equipment, and documents.
Shortly afterwards, the man runs into a court bailiff, and a scuffle between the two ensues. Two more bailiffs appear, and together, they subdue the suspect, remove what appears to be a pistol from his person, and throw it away from him before handcuffing him. The bailiffs can be seen hitting at the suspect despite him being already adequately detained.
The ministry said that Elisashvili ‘resisted using a firearm and physically assaulted’ the court bailiffs.
‘One bailiff was taken to a medical facility with injuries sustained during the confrontation. Elisashvili also sustained injuries while resisting arrest’, the ministry stated.
The ministry’s statement included a video showing Elisashvili surrounded by police officers, with severe bruising around both eyes.
‘I wanted to set injustice on fire’
Soon after the statement was released, lawyer Rekhviashvili suggested that the incident looked like a ‘staged special operation’ by the ruling Georgian Dream party. He claimed that the government ‘needed a new case, new evidence, to stop this active politician in some way’.
However, that same evening, after meeting with Elisashvili, he ‘conveyed’ Elisashvili’s message that what happened at the court was ‘a form of protest’ against an ‘unjust court’.
‘“Fire to the oligarchy and fire to the unjust court” — those were the words he told me to pass on. He only regrets that he was a few seconds short of completing what he intended. This was a deliberate act of protest’, Rekhviashvili said.
‘He wanted to show the public how many people the court sentences illegally and unfairly, and how the government uses the judiciary to strengthen its regime and dictatorship’, Rekhviashvili added.
Elisashvili echoed the same remarks during Monday’s trial, with RFE/RL quoting him saying ‘I wanted to set injustice on fire’.
He claimed in court that the firearm, which is visible in the video, ‘came out during the scuffle’ and he had no intention to use it.
‘I could no longer stand watching the injustice; how they drag young people around like cats. I myself saw a police officer who enjoyed seeing me bleed and even started engaging in political debate’, he said.
Elisashvili also said that if he wanted to attack anyone, ‘no one would have been left alive’, adding that he only intended to ‘repel’ those attempting to detain him.
Rekhviashvili separately stressed during the court process that Elisashvili is legally permitted to carry a firearm.
The terrorism charge
The Interior Ministry initially stated on Saturday that a criminal investigation was underway under charges of damaging or destroying someone else’s property, punishable by one to five years in prison. However, on Sunday, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced Elisashvili would be charged with terrorism, carrying a far heavier sentence.
Rekhviashvili called the terrorism charges ‘absurd’, saying that ‘the act was neither carried out nor completed’.
‘Elisashvili admits the act but does not consider it a crime [...] It was a form of protest’, he added.
On Monday, Rekhviashvili further stated that ‘the aim of terrorism is to intimidate the public and destabilise the government’, noting that Elisashvili ‘deliberately chose 04:00 in the morning’, arguing that his goal was to ‘avoid harming anyone’.
Elisashvili’s party distances itself while authorities blame the EU, again
The opposition group Lelo — Strong Georgia, of which Elisashvili is a member, said on Saturday that the politician’s actions were ‘unacceptable and unjustifiable’.
‘Aleko Elisashvili has repeatedly been a victim of injustice and violence by the regime, and his act is a testament to one individual’s desperate stand against it’, the group said. However, they added:
‘We must not allow the regime to push us to despair through systemic violence and injustice, or force us to abandon peaceful and lawful ways of resisting tyranny’.
During the trial, Elisashvili addressed Lelo, saying that his intention was not to harm the ‘shared cause’.
Ruling party representatives and their allies have condemned Elisashvili, labelling his actions ‘terrorism’, and used the case to launch fresh criticism at the EU, which they have repeatedly accused of encouraging anti-government violence in Georgia.
‘Failure to condemn extremism hiding under Europe’s name gives rise to pro-European terrorism’, Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili wrote on social media, adding that ‘Brussels moved so quickly on this path that we shouldn’t expect condemnation even at this stage’.
On the same day, Georgian Dream MP Rati Ionatamishvili said that ‘everyone is wondering whether the EU bureaucracy will take responsibility for today’s poorly executed terrorist act’.
Generalising the criticism over the opposition, ruling party MP Tornike Paghava called Elisashvili a ‘symbol and face of the radical opposition’, while pro-government TV Imedi host Irakli Chikhladze said on air that ‘Elisashvili is one example of the policy pursued by the radical opposition’.
Meanwhile, the case sparked speculations on social media, with some questioning the investigation and the circumstances of the incident.
Elisashvili has already faced a criminal investigation in the past. In December 2024, he was detained for an alleged politically motivated assault on Georgian Dream member Ali Babaev. Elisashvili was detained but later released on bail, while claiming he acted only after being insulted by Babaev.
Earlier, during the protests against the foreign agent law in April 2024, Elisashvili said police had beaten him, leaving visible injuries, including on his face. The incident occurred just days after he punched Mamuka Mdinareadze, then-chair of the ruling party’s parliamentary faction and current head of the State Security Service (SSG), during a parliamentary debate over the foreign agent law.
Elisashvili was also assaulted by riot police on 1 May 2024, during a protest dispersal.
OC Media
