Opposition Politician Aleko Elisashvili Charged With ‘Terrorism’ in Separate Incident
Opposition politician Aleko Elisashvili, who is in pretrial detention on attempted terrorism charges over his alleged efforts to set fire to the Tbilisi City Court chancellery in November, has now been charged with terrorism over a separate, similar incident in May, in which the Prosecutor General’s Office said he set fire to the court’s archive. While Elisashvili had admitted his involvement in the November incident, his lawyers dismissed the new accusations.
A March 30 statement by the Prosecutor General’s Office said that on May 4, 2025, around 3:44 a.m. in Tbilisi, Elisashvili, “equipped with items necessary to carry out a terrorist act and with his face covered by a mask,” approached the rear of the Tbilisi City Court building, where the court’s archive is located.
The statement is accompanied by multiple CCTV recordings comparing two Tbilisi City Court incidents – November 29, 2025, and May 4, 2025 – alleging that the masked men with backpacks in both are Elisashvili.
According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, on May 4, Elisashvili first “climbed a ventilation duct and tried to open a window” but failed, then went down the stairs and “threw a flammable petroleum-based substance into the archive room through the window, sparking a fire.”
“He returned to another window near a second archive room, climbed the duct again, and set fire to the window and wires,” the statement said, adding that the suspect’s actions caused a fire “on the building’s exterior and in the archive” before firefighters extinguished it.
Elisashvili, jailed since November, faces up to 15 years in prison under Article 323 of Georgia’s Criminal Code, which covers terrorism.
Days before the announcement of the new charges, on March 24, Elisashvili said that he did not want to be considered a “political prisoner,” suggesting that the ruling party appeared to be using his name and case to discredit others widely believed to be jailed for political reasons. He said that if any “list” of political prisoners were requested or compiled for their release, he did not want to be included.
Aleko Elisashvili’s Citizens party joined the Strong Georgia alliance, led by Lelo, ahead of the October 26, 2024, parliamentary elections and remained a member even after other parties left, including over Lelo’s decision to participate in the partially boycotted 2025 municipal vote. Elisashvili also briefly fought against Russian forces in Ukraine shortly after the full-scale invasion in 2022.
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