Court Orders Critic to Pay GEL 10,000 to GD Lawmaker Tsilosani in Defamation Case
The Tbilisi City Court has ordered philosopher Levan Ghambashidze to pay GEL 10,000 (USD 3,677) to Georgian Dream MP Nino Tsilosani after ruling in the lawmaker’s favor in a defamation case stemming from Ghambashidze’s corruption allegations against her family.
In May, Ghambashidze said that Tsilosani had sued him, seeking GEL 10,000 (USD 3,677) in compensation, after he alleged in a February social media post that Tsilosani’s family had stolen GEL 65 million (USD 24 million) from the state budget. Tsilosani publicly urged him to retract the statement at the time, warning that otherwise they would “meet in court.”
“Levan Ghambashidze lied in the information spread against my family, which was also confirmed by the court’s decision,” Tsilosani, who is also a deputy speaker of the GD-led parliament, wrote on Facebook on October 29. “By fully satisfying my claim, the court once again reinforced the hope that no disinformation or false accusation will go unanswered.”
She added that the compensation would be donated “to those who need it most,” calling the gesture a “morally right step” and urging Ghambashidze to direct his efforts toward “more noble and righteous goals.”
In response, Ghambashidze wrote on Facebook that “It is a lie that the court confirmed I had lied.” According to the philosopher, “if the court confirmed anything at all, it is that it cannot make decisions independent from the Georgian Dream government.”
The dispute stems from a high-profile, long-running embezzlement case involving a train-building company run by Tsilosani’s father, Badri Tsilosani, and her former husband, Vladimer Abuladze, among others. They were accused by the Finance Ministry’s Investigative Service of misappropriating GEL 65 million from Georgian Railway, a state-run enterprise, through inflated repair contracts.
According to the investigation, Georgian Railway allegedly registered a price of USD 39,000 per freight wagon repair when the actual market value was around GEL 31,000, resulting in financial losses worth GEL 65 mln. The accused were released on bail in 2013. According to the Publika outlet, Tbilisi City Court acquitted all defendants in 2023, a decision later upheld by the Court of Appeals in September 2024 after a decade-long legal process.
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