TBILISI, March 10 – A new report about alleged Iranian influence in Georgia has triggered a political storm, with Georgia’s domestic intelligence service questioning politicians, a former defense minister, a retired general and a researcher after a series of public statements about possible security threats.
The controversy began after former defense minister Tina Khidasheli said on TV that a structure linked to the sanctioned Al-Mustafa network was operating in Georgia and described it as a serious issue requiring attention. Around the same time, Radio Liberty reported on a March 3 study published by the Hudson Institute, co-authored by Giorgi Kandelaki and Luke Coffey, which said Iran was systematically expanding its influence and “influence infrastructure” in Georgia.
The al-Mustafa International University has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department since 2020 for allegedly being involved in recruitment for the Quds Force, an elite branch within Iran’s military that engages in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations.
On Friday, the State Security Service (SSS) said it had opened an investigation after multiple public statements about foreign recruitment in Georgia and accusations or hints related to terrorism. The agency said the authors of those statements would be questioned in all directions and given a chance to point to concrete facts. The investigation is being conducted under a section of Georgia’s Criminal Code that concerns assisting hostile activity for a foreign country, foreign organization or an organization under foreign control.
Those summoned included opposition politicians Gubaz Sanikidze and Givi Targamadze, former defense minister Tina Khidasheli, retired Major General Vakhtang Kapanadze, and researcher Giorgi Kandelaki of the think tank Soviet Past Research Laboratory, SovLab. Sanikidze, Khidasheli and Kandelaki gave testimony before a magistrate judge. Kapanadze was later summoned and questioned for more than three hours. Targamadze was outside Georgia, and the security service said it would notify him once contact was established. Targamadze later said online that he had left the country that day and mocked the agency’s effort to reach him.
The people questioned said they were raising legitimate security concerns, not helping a foreign power. After her questioning on Saturday, Khidasheli said her goal had been achieved if the authorities were now paying attention to a possible threat. She also said she had not stated that terrorists were being trained in Georgia.
Kandelaki said the problem was not the Hudson report, which he described as a compilation of publicly known facts, but the events described in it, including what he said were pro-Khamenei chants by hundreds of Georgian citizens outside the Iranian embassy.
Kapanadze, whose earlier TV remarks included the possibility that Iran could directly strike targets in Georgia such as the U.S. Embassy or the Georgian section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, said after questioning that he had answered questions as a witness about the general situation.
Several leading figures in the ruling GD party criticized the public warnings that triggered the investigation. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, First Vice Speaker Gia Volski, ruling party lawmaker Irakli Kadagishvili, and People’s Power MP Guram Macharashvili all said the public statements were false and harmful to Georgia’s national interests.
Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili went further, and said the statements were part of a coordinated campaign against the country. “This is the same scheme that has been used since the start of the war in Ukraine […] people standing in the service of a foreign power and making their own homeland an object of attack,” he said.
The international reactions to the case included comments from Hudson Institute President John Walters, who said on Monday that he was deeply concerned by the investigation. He defended the report as based on publicly available verified information, and said the authorities should be worried by its findings rather than by its authors. U.S. Congressman Joe Wilson also reacted on social media, accusing the ruling Georgian Dream party of trying to silence experts.
