The Tbilisi City Court has sentenced Lazare Grigoriadis to nine years in prison for assaulting a police officer and arson during the March 2023 protests against GD draft law on “foreign agents.”
Grigoriadis' conviction comes as GD reintroduced the controversial bill on "foreign agents" a year after it was forced to withdraw the initiative following mass protests in March 2023.
Grigoriadis was convicted of two charges: harming the health of a police officer during his duties and destroying property by setting fire by a Molotov cocktail.
A number of CSOs questioned Grigoriadis would be granted the right to a fair trial. Democracy Research Institute, a Georgian public policy think tank recently stated the case had taken “a political nature.”
Following the verdict, Grigoriadis's lawyer claimed that the court had not been presented with the direct evidence against Lazare and that she planned to make an official appeal to President Salome Zourabichvili for pardoning.
Government critics say Grigoriadis was specifically targeted following the March protests due to his distinctive appearance and non-Georgian-sounding family name. They believe these factors were intentionally used to undermine and discredit the successful March protests, which ultimately forced the ruling GD party to withdraw the widely condemned bill.
Following the protests in 2023, current PM Irakli Kobakhidze made derogatory remarks about Grigoriadis, using homophobic language to question his motivations, calling him an individual with a “confused orientation.”
Former PM and current GD chair Irakli Garibashvili referred to Grigoriadis as "some dirty person" and declared that anyone who raised a hand against the police would face the full force of the state. Grigoriadis subsequently filed a lawsuit against both Garibashvili and Kobakhidze for their offensive comments but was met with rejection by the court.
GD officials have warned the president on multiple occasions that Grigoriadis’ pardoning would result in heavy political consequences.
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