Court Revokes Bail, Travel Restriction Imposed on Ugulava for Airport Incident

On March 9, Tbilisi City Court revoked 2000 GEL bail and a restriction to travel abroad imposed on Gigi Ugulava, leader of the European Georgia party, following an altercation involving him at Tbilisi Airport on December 11.

The City Court satisfied defendant’s motion to cancel the decree demanding Ugulava to hand over his passport, which, defendant’s lawyer argued, was no longer relevant since the Supreme Court had already found Ugulava guilty in another case.

The said altercation took place at the dawn of December 11, when Ugulava and his party colleague Giorgi (Goka) Gabashvili were reportedly assaulted at the departure terminal of the Tbilisi Airport. Later it became clear that one of the alleged assaulter was Badri Gavashelishvili, a judo champion. Ugulava was charged for beating Gavashelishvili, while Gabashvili was granted victim’s status.

Currently Ugulava serves a three years and two months sentence for misspending Gel 48 million of public money from Tbilisi Development Fund in his capacity as the mayor of the capital city.

The opposition claims that releasing Ugulava (and three other prisoners) from custody was one of the conditions for signing a joint statement with the ruling party representatives on March 8. The ruling Georgian Dream party maintains that there was no mention of single prisoners in the course of the negotiations and that the statement text touches upon the issues only in broad strokes.

This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)