Georgian police have raided the home of Giorgi Kldonashvili, confiscating his phone, computer, and documents as part of a case in which he is accused of extorting equipment from the Georgian Technical University (GTU) in 2021. Kldonashvili, who denies the accusation, believes the case was ‘resurrected’ to punish him for joining anti-government protests.
Kldonashvili told RFE/RL that the police searched his home on Wednesday morning as part of the extortion case.
He explained that, during his time working at GTU, he founded and headed a student television station, Stunet, which the ruling Georgian Dream party had asked to distribute their political messages. He said that Stunet refused to air the political messages and that the party had been asking him to leave his position and hand it over to the management of PosTV, a far-right pro-government TV channel.
Kldonashvili said that GTU accused him of embezzlement and set up a commission to investigate Stunet’s inventory. He said that the police asked him to attend the investigation, and upon arriving, he found that Stunet’s inventory had gone missing.
GTU has told RFE/RL that the accusations were based on an examination of Stunet’s annual inventory, and that Kldonashvili had ‘lost property’ worth approximately ₾200,000 ($74,000).
Kldonashvili denies the university’s accusation.
‘The investigation has been ongoing since then. We have appealed to the investigation several times to either establish the crime or to say that I am innocent, but to no avail’, he told RFE/RL.
‘Given my recent activity — I have been standing on Rustaveli [Avenue] almost every day, they have “resurrected” this case’, he added. ‘They will probably summon me and, most likely, they will also charge me’.
He added that he had been communicating with the authorities regarding the case since 2021, with their last written communication dating back to December 2024, when the Financial Police requested additional documents, which he had provided.
‘Of course, I attribute all of this to my political views and activism. At the time, they started an investigation against me precisely because of this’, he told RFE/RL.
Kldonashvili is a member of the Protest Auditorium team — an activist initiative that, since last year, has been organising public lectures on Rustaveli Avenue, a traditional site for anti-government protests.
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