Kavelashvili Pardons 226 People, Including Jailed Protester Pridon Bubuteishvili

Georgian Dream-elected President Mikheil Kavelashvili has granted pardons to 226 people, including Pridon Bubuteishvili, who was serving a five-year sentence following his arrest in connection with the 2024 protests against the foreign agents law.

The President’s Administration announced pardons on the occasion of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary (Mariamoba), a religious holiday marked in Georgia on August 28. The case of Bubuteishvili, 22, marks the first known pardon granted by Kavelashvili to a person imprisoned in connection with the protests since 2024, and comes some four months after reports emerged that he had applied for a pardon.

Bubuteishvili was arrested in spring 2024, during the protests against Georgian Dream’s reintroduction of the foreign agents law, on allegations of causing GEL 500 [around USD 180] worth of damage to the gate of the Parliament building and throwing a stone at a firefighter, resulting in injury. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison in January 2025.

According to Kavelashvili’s office, the August pardons covered 217 convicted individuals serving custodial sentences and six others serving non-custodial sentences. Three others had their criminal records expunged. The names of those pardoned are not released, as is customary.

“The President of Georgia’s exercise of the exclusive power granted by the Constitution is based on the principles of humanism and the national interest,” the President’s Administration said in its press release.

Note: the article was updated at 22:45, August 27 to include the reports of pardoning Pridon Bubuteishvili

Also Read:

• 28/01/2026 – Mikheil Kavelashvili Grants 59 Pardons
• 19/01/2026 – Mikheil Kavelashvili Pardons 159 Inmates
• 14/10/2025 – Kavelashvili Grants 70 Pardons
• 20/01/2025 – GD President’s Pardon of 613 Prisoners at Once Raises Questions