TBILISI, July 11 – Georgian opposition politician Aleko Elisashvili has been sentenced to 13 years in prison after being found guilty of attempting to commit a terrorist act.
Tbilisi City Court found Elisashvili guilty on Friday. The judge sentenced him to 13 years of imprisonment. The case concerns an incident inside the chancellery building of Tbilisi City Court, where court bailiff service employees stopped Elisashvili’s action before police detained him at the scene.
Elisashvili is leader of Citizen, a political party, and ran on a jount ticket with the Lelo party in the last local elections in Tbilisi. He was charged with attempting to commit a terrorist act. Earlier reporting on the case said prosecutors accused him of trying to set fire to the court building after an incident there on November 29, 2025. His defense has argued that the act should not have been treated as terrorism.
The verdict released a flood of criticism. His lawyer, Giorgi Rekhviashvili, said the ruling was unfounded and would be appealed. He argued that even if attempted terrorism had been proven, 13 years was too severe, because such a sentence could be imposed in a case of a completed terrorist attack. Rekhviashvili said there was no direct or indirect evidence proving attempted terrorism, and that the judge ignored defense evidence, including an expert finding that the fire could not have caused 25 million GEL in damage. He said the case would be taken through all national appeal stages and then to the European Court of Human Rights.
Strong Georgia-Lelo called Elisashvili a political prisoner and said the sentence showed that Georgia’s courts were being used as a tool of political revenge. The coalition said it was especially alarming that Elisashvili was being presented as a terrorist when, in its view, the terrorism charge was not supported by credible evidence.
Several Lelo figures gave similar reactions. Ketevan Turazashvili said the case involved 320 GEL in damage, no victims and no injured person, and argued that such a case could not be treated as terrorism. Salome Samadashvili described the 13-year sentence as an act of revenge and intimidation. Grigol Gegelia said the charge had been reclassified after political statements by senior government figures.
Former president Salome Zourabichvili also criticized the verdict. In a Facebook post, she said she did not know what kind of scenario had been built around Elisashvili, but said the 13-year sentence had nothing to do with justice.
Elisashvili’s wife, Irina Kilosanidze, told PalitraNews that the sentence was harsh but expected. She said Elisashvili was optimistic and had sent a message saying the authorities would try to punish him severely, but that he would eventually be released. She also said some politicians had been made hesitant by the terrorism charge, but that a more active response from them would not have changed the court’s decision.
The ruling party side defended the state’s response. Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze said freedom of speech and expression is protected in Georgia, and that citizens may express their views and hold rallies, but only within the law. When people go beyond the law, state bodies will respond, he said. Kaladze also said he did not expect ALDE, the European liberal alliance linked to Lelo, to distance itself from Lelo over Elisashvili’s case.
Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili went further. After the verdict, he called on ALDE either to make Lelo distance itself from terrorism or expel the party from its ranks. In another statement on Saturday, he accused opposition figures of justifying an attempted terrorist act by political motives, saying this reflected a wider extremist mindset.
EU Ambassador Pawel Herczynski avoided commenting directly on the verdict, saying it was a matter for the court system. But he added that the EU stands for freedom of assembly, speech and expression, which he called fundamental principles for any country seeking to join the European Union.
