Tbilisi City Court has sentenced a 21-year-old man to four years and six months in prison for ‘hitting police officers with a stick’ during a protest.
Mate Devidze was arrested on 19 November during protests against electoral fraud during October’s parliamentary elections.
The prosecution claimed that Devidze hit three police officers, Levan Kodelashvili, Giorgi Estateshvili, and Bidzina Zhamerashvili with a stick.
His lawyers insist that what Devidze was holding was not a stick, but a rolled up paper poster, and that he was defending himself during the arrests.
Before his sentence was announced on Thursday, the court building descended into chaos as hundreds of supporters, including the fifth president of Georgia, Salome Zourabichvili attempted to enter the courtroom to observe the conclusion of the trial.
Court bailiffs failed to organise a queue to enter the small courtroom, instead pushing people away and eventually ejecting most of them from the building. At least one person, Tazo Datunashvili, was detained during the chaos, and several others reported being heavily bruised. Only a few people managed to attend the hearing, including Devidze’s family members, a few friends, journalists, and Zourabichvili.
In his closing statement, Devidze addressed the few spectators who had been allowed to enter, telling them he had attended the trial only to see them.
‘You all know that I was going to the Tbilisi protests from Telavi, to peacefully protest the [country’s] anti-European path with my friends’, he said.
Turning towards the presiding judge, Nino Galustasvhili, Devidze accused her of ‘sacrificing us only to fulfill the orders of your commander’.
He then left the courtroom stating that he would not listen to the verdict. ‘In search of light in endless darkness’, were his last words before leaving the courtroom.
Before leaving the court, Salome Zourabichvili said that it was a shameful day for Georgia.
‘A country where there is no justice is no country, is no state. Everyone will pay the price for this tomorrow or the day after’, she said, adding that Mate Devidze would remain a symbol of dignity.
Protesters who had gathered outside the court moved to the central Petre Melikishvili Street, where Devidze was arrested in November. They blocked the street and eventually moving to the intersection next to Tbilisi State University. They erected tents and kept the road blocked until 06:00 the following morning when police forced them to leave the road. Protesters then moved to conclude the demonstration outside the parliament.
US Congressperson Joe Wilson, who has been an outspoken advocate for sanctions on Georgian officials, commented on the ruling on his X account later on Thursday, calling for sanctions to be imposed on the judge who presided over the trial.
‘Ivanishvili’s kangaroo court has sentenced innocent 21-year-old protestor Mate Devidze to 4 years and 6 months in prison simply for wanting a future of freedom for his country of Georgia’, he wrote. ‘Nino Galutashvili and the other perpetrators of this heinous crime must face sanctions!’
Several senior Georgian judges have already been sanctioned by several countries including the US for undermining the rule of law in Georgia.
Mariam Nikuradze
