Prepared by Messenger Staff
Elizbarashvili Jailed Pending Trial Over Threats Case
The Tbilisi City Court has ordered pre-trial detention for animal rights defender Tamaz Elizbarashvili after prosecutors charged him with making threats. He faces a fine or up to a year in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors say Elizbarashvili, 63, threatened several people during an August 30 confrontation at a Tbilisi restaurant, several of whom work for pro-government broadcaster Imedi TV, and later returned to the scene armed. Surveillance footage released by prosecutors "presumably" shows him concealing a weapon under his jacket and later stashing it in his car, though no weapon is visible in the clip. He denies the charges, saying the group threatened him first, and his defense disputes that he carried a weapon.
At the September 4 hearing, Elizbarashvili said seven people confronted him over his social media posts and demanded an apology. "I told him, 'I don't know you. What should I apologize to you for?'" he told the court, adding that one of them swore at him, spat on him and threatened him.
His defense argued prosecutors presented no evidence to support the charge and said his hand was on his chest because he felt unwell, not because he was hiding a weapon. In a livestream after the confrontation, Elizbarashvili had warned the group to apologize or he would "find you one by one" and force them to their knees.
Occupied Abkhazia Detains Man Over Genocide Remarks
Russia-backed security services in occupied Abkhazia have detained resident Roman Darsalia after he said during a livestream that Georgians were subjected to genocide by Abkhaz forces in the 1992-1993 war.
The de facto security service said in a September 4 statement that monitoring uncovered a conversation with a Ukrainian blogger in which Darsalia claimed Abkhaz forces "committed genocide against Georgians" during the 1992-1993 conflict, which Abkhaz de facto authorities refer to as the Patriotic War of the People of Abkhazia. The agency said checks into him are ongoing and that he has since apologized to Abkhaz society.
In a video released alongside the statement, Darsalia says he did not mean to hurt "the feelings of our people" and argues instead that "there was no genocide of the Georgian people," claiming it was the Abkhaz who suffered genocide. He insists this is what he actually told the blogger, alleging his words were edited before being posted, and also apologizes for speaking negatively about Russian authorities and the Russian public.
A separate, unedited clip of the livestream shows Darsalia introducing himself as ethnically Megrelian rather than Abkhaz, and agreeing as the blogger says Georgians were "driven out" and that genocide occurred. The clip does not specify who was blamed, nor does it show Darsalia making the accusation himself.
