Lazare Grigoriadis Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison

On April 12, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced Lazare Grigoriadis to nine years in prison.

Grigoriadis, 22, was arrested in connection with the March 7-9 protests against the so-called Foreign Agents Law for allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at police and setting fire to a police car. Today, Judge Zviad Sharadze found him guilty of both charges of harming the health of a police officer under Part 2 of Article 353 Prima of the Criminal Code and destroying state property under Part 2 of Article 187 of the Criminal Code.

Later, on April 12, the defendant side officially appealed to President Salome Zurabishvili to pardon Lazare Grigoriadis.

Grigoriadis’ case was adjourned several times for various reasons. The defendant side and local CSOs had accused the court of deliberately protracting the trial and expected a guilty verdict. Lika Bitadze, Grigoriadis’ lawyer, also noted this after today’s verdict. According to her, the court’s decision was politically motivated.

“This was not a court decision. This was a political decision. A court did not make this decision,” the lawyer said.

The defendant claimed that there was no direct evidence that Grigoriadis committed the criminal acts. Meanwhile, the prosecutor in the case, Tamar Iakobidze, said today that “the evidence obtained in this case provided for a guilty verdict.”

NOTE: This news was updated on April 12 at 13:40 to reflect that the defendant side has already officially appealed to President Salome Zurabishvili to pardon Grigoriadis.

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