The Tbilisi City Court has sentenced three people to life in prison for orchestrating the 2025 murder of Levan Jangveladze, the brother of well-known Georgian mafia figure Merab Jangveladze. Only one of those sentenced, Giorgi Mikadze, is actually in detention in Georgia, so the sentences for his brother Davit Mikadze and their associate Giorgi Jokhadze were delivered in absentia on Wednesday. Disgraced former Prosecutor General Otar Partskhaladze has also been charged in the case, but remains abroad.
Judge Romeo Tkeshelashvili said ‘the prosecution was able to substantiate the charges to the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt’.
In turn, speaking to the court, Giorgi Mikadze maintained his innocence, saying he could not be paid to commit such a crime, as he was ‘raised in a family with traditions’.
The sentences do not constitute the conclusion of the case, as Davit Mikadze and Jokhadze remain abroad, and Partskhaladze has yet to be sentenced.
The murder took place in Tbilisi’s upscale Vake district, on one of the city’s main streets, Chavchavadze Avenue, on the evening of 14 March.
Partskhaladze was initially linked to the case in September 2025 by Detective Robiko Gogiashvili at a hearing for Gela Udziliauri, convicted of actually carrying out the hit. Gogiashvili said at the time the original mastermind behind the murder was Ded Hasan’s grandson Irakli Usoyan.
Ded Hasan, or Aslan Usoyan, was an influential thief-in-law born in Soviet Georgia and killed in Moscow in 2013 at the age of 75.
Gogiashvili said that Irakli Usoyan had contracted Partskhaladze and the Mikadze brothers to carry out the hit for $5 million. Earlier, the opposition-leaning TV Pirveli had reported that the Mikadze brothers were associates of Partskhaladze.
Gogiashvili’s testimony did not reveal Usoyan’s motivations but noted that Partskhaladze and the Mikadze brothers had a ‘tense relationship’ with Jangveladze over the export of cigarettes and alcohol to Russia. However, as Gogiashvili mentioned, the Mikadze brothers had not dared to directly act against Jangveladze before, due to his brother Merab’s authority.
Nate Ostiller
