Givi Targamadze Sentenced to Seven Months for Defying Tsulukiani Commission
Tbilisi City Court Judge Nino Galustashvili on June 27 sentenced former UNM lawmaker Givi Targamadze to seven months in prison for refusing to appear before the Tsulukiani Commission – the Georgian Dream parliament’s temporary commission of inquiry, chaired by GD veteran Tea Tsulukiani and tasked with probing the former officials.
Targamadze is the fifth to receive a prison sentence, following opposition leaders Giorgi Vashadze of Strategy Aghmashenebeli, Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaradze of Lelo, and Zurab Japaridze of Girchi–More Freedom. Three others, Nika Melia and Nika Gvaramia of Ahali, and former Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili, currently in pretrial detention after rejecting court-imposed bail, also face likely prison rulings.
All those sentenced so far have also been barred from holding public office for two years.
Givi Targamadze served as a UNM MP from 2004 to 2016, across three parliamentary convocations. From 2008 to 2012, he chaired the parliamentary Defense and Security Committee. In 2017, he joined European Georgia, a party that split from UNM, but left it in 2021.
Targamadze did not attend the court hearing where his sentence was announced by Judge Nino Galustashvili, who had earlier sentenced Giorgi Vashadze to seven months in the same case, and 21-year-old Mate Devidze to four years and six months in prison for allegedly assaulting police.
Under Georgian law, noncompliance with a parliamentary investigative commission is a criminal offense punishable by up to one year in prison or a fine, as well as a ban on holding public office for up to three years. However, courts have so far issued only prison sentences, with no fines imposed.
Dozens of international partners have condemned the arrests of opposition politicians, describing them as acts of political persecution and saying the Georgian Dream is trying to consolidate power and suppress dissent.
In 2013, Russian authorities charged Givi Targamadze in absentia for allegedly conspiring with a Russian opposition activist to incite riots in Moscow in 2012. The Moscow court sanctioned his arrest. Earlier, in 2006, Belarus also accused him of involvement in an alleged plot after the elections aimed at toppling the government.
Targamadze was also the target of a car explosion in 2016 in downtown Tbilisi. Then-President Giorgi Margvelashvili condemned the blast as a “terrorist act,” calling it “an attack of crime against the normal political, democratic process.”
Tsulukiani Commission
The Georgian Dream parliament’s temporary investigative commission, chaired by GD veteran and former justice and culture minister Tea Tsulukiani, is officially tasked with probing alleged crimes committed by the former United National Movement government and other officials. The commission has summoned both alleged victims and former officials, including current opposition leaders, most of whom have refused to appear, considering the one-party parliament illegitimate.
On June 25, the GD parliament once again extended the commission’s term by one month, until August 5.
Former Georgian Dream Interior Minister and Prime Minister, now opposition For Georgia party leader Giorgi Gakharia, is the only opposition leader who agreed to testify before the Tsulukiani Commission. He maintained that his compliance did not amount to recognizing the Georgian Dream parliament, which his party continues to boycott.
Gakharia was recently summoned again over the Chorchana episode, which the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating under “sabotage” charges. Gakharia offered to appear online, citing a visit abroad. The commission declined a remote hearing and scheduled an in-person session for July 2, but Gakharia’s party says he will still be abroad on that date.
Two others – Nika Gvaramia and Mamuka Khazaradze – who previously refused to appear, were also resummoned. Both vowed to continue boycotting the GD commission from behind bars. Chair Tea Tsulukiani suggested the commission will likely ask the Prosecutor’s Office again to investigate their renewed non-compliance.
“If Gvaramia or Khazaradze does not join the commission remotely from their cells, it will not be surprising to anyone that we will probably have to send their second case of non-appearance to the Prosecutor’s Office,” Tsulukiani said in a June 23 interview with the pro-government channel Rustavi 2.
The commission is addressing topics including alleged torture, business racketeering, and the August 2008 war, which it blames on the former UNM government and ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Georgian Dream says the commission’s final report will be submitted to the country’s Constitutional Court to ban the UNM and its “successor parties.” GD says it plans to ban the opposition by the end of the year.
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