GD Candidate’s Son Arrested for Stabbing UNM Supporters

Police have arrested the son of Georgian Dream’s local majoritarian candidate, Davit Dautashvili, for stabbing with a knife two United National Movement supporters during a September 21 brawl in Gantiadi village of Dmanisi municipality.

Dautashvili is charged with intentional infliction of grave injury and violence committed by a group of persons, under Articles 117 and 126(1b) of the Criminal Code of Georgia, respectively. The offense carries a prison sentence of 3 to 6 years.

Police said the stabbed men received injuries on their faces, and are being treated at a hospital.

The brawl erupted at the UNM Dmanisi mayoral hopeful Giorgi Tatuashvili’s meeting with his supporters. Tatuashvili is also the incumbent Mayor – elected in 2017 as a GD candidate, he was fired from the party in 2020 over his support of Kakha Okriashvili, former ruling party MP who quit and joined the UNM-led Strength in Unity bloc for the 2020 parliamentary vote.

After the incident, MP Okriashvili, who was campaigning with Tatuashvili, claimed that 20 to 30 “aggressive” Georgian Dream supporters had attacked the gathering.

Georgian Dream Dmanisi majoritarian candidate for the local elections, Mikheil Dautashvili accused MP Okriashvili of provoking the GD activists ahead of the incident. He added that he was being beaten unconscious during the brawl when his son, the detainee, interfered.

The GD candidate said his son voluntarily turned himself in. “He has to pay for the crime,” he noted, but stressed that the detainee is “not completely healthy.”

GD PR Secretary, MP Shalva Papuashvili dubbed the incident “a provocation” of the United National Movement, but called on the ruling party’s supporters exercise restraint.

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