Supreme Court Rules Original Sentence for Micro-Finance Assailant

According to media reports, on August 2 the Supreme Court of Georgia found Levan Zurabashvili, who broke into a microfinance company on November 20, 2020, and took 19 hostages, guilty once again, and sentenced him to 9 years imprisonment in line with the original verdict.

Zurabashvili was first found guilty and sentenced to 9 years by the Tbilisi City Court on the grounds of taking more than two people hostage under Article 144(2g) of the Criminal Code of Georgia. The Appeals Court in the next instance, however, found Zurabashvili guilty of the unlawful deprivation of liberty for two or more persons under Article 143 (3c) and reduced his sentence to 7 years.

Zurabashvili’s lawyer, Beka Janelidze, was cited by Netgazeti as saying that the evidence provided by the defense proved that the accused did not illegally deprive anyone of their freedom. Janelidze also stated that they will decide whether to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights after the Court releases the full judgment.

During Zurabashvili’s arrest, the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia said that he had taken 19 hostages by threatening to use firearms and hand grenades.

Prior to his arrest, Zurabashvili held hostages in the building of the microfinance company for about three hours, during which he also released a video on Facebook where he demanded a ban on gambling, the lowering of medicine prices, and the imposition of a 7% annual interest rate limit on bank loans.

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