Amaglobeli sentenced to two years after charges were reduced

On the day of the sentencing, the Batumi City Court judge reclassified the charges against Mzia Amaglobeli, founder of the Batumelebi and Netgazeti publications. The defense called it an attempt to save face for the authorities.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" reported, on August 4, during her final statement, Amaglobeli refused to ask the court for leniency. The journalist is accused of attacking the Batumi police chief Irakli Dgebuadze, whom she slapped.

Judge Nino Sahelashvili reclassified the charges against the journalist and sentenced her to two years in prison. In addition, the judge explained that Amaglobeli can "appeal to the president for pardon." According to Batumelebi editor-in-chief Eter Turadze, when leaving the courtroom, Mzia Amaglobeli was holding a piece of paper with the inscription "A slap in the face to the regime."

Initially, the journalist was charged under Article 353 of the Criminal Code of Georgia (which provides for a sentence of imprisonment for a term of four to seven years). However, today the judge reclassified the charge to the first part of this article, which provides for resistance, threat or violence against a government official. The maximum punishment for this is more lenient - imprisonment for a term of 2 to 6 years, noted the publication Interpressnews.

It took Judge Nino Sahelashvili, who is on Western sanctions lists, only a few minutes to announce the decision. She left the courtroom immediately after reading the verdict. "The term of Mzia Amaglobeli's sentence will be calculated from the day of her arrest on January 12, 2025, and the verdict will be sent to the appropriate penitentiary institution for execution," Jamnews quotes the judge as saying.

According to Maia Mtsariashvili, Mzia Amaglobeli's lawyer, the government was trying to "save face" with this verdict. "This is an attempt to save itself and its reputation, which has nothing to do with justice. "This is not a sentence, but a demonstrative measure of punishment," she said.

The trial caused a stir

Those wishing to get into the courtroom of the Batumi City Court lined up an hour before the start of the trial, but despite this, not everyone was able to get inside. The fifth president of Georgia, Salome Zurabishvili, was again present at the trial. In the street near the courthouse, excerpts from Mzia Amaglobeli's final speech could be heard on loudspeakers in the morning.

In parallel with the announcement of the verdict, activists held a rally in the courtyard of the court in support of Amaglobeli. "Freedom for Mzia", "Mzia spent seven months in prison", "The King is naked", "Stop the lawlessness" - these are the posters that people displayed near the court building, the publication describes the atmosphere.

After the verdict was announced, Mzia Amaglobeli was taken to Rustavi prison to applause and enthusiastic cries.

After the verdict was announced, 24 diplomatic missions condemned the verdict of journalist Mzia Amaglobeli as disproportionate and politicized. Representatives of Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom expressed solidarity with the journalist and called on the Georgian authorities to immediately release her, noting the deterioration of her health and the increasing pressure on independent media, Georgia Online reports.

At the court hearing on July 14, Amaglobeli explained that the security officer subjected her to inhumane treatment in the police station: according to Amaglobeli, the slap was "an impulsive reaction to humiliating treatment", although she does not regret what she did.

The testimonies of witnesses in the Mzia Amaglobeli case are "written from a carbon copy", and the charges are based on a cropped 44-second video clip that shows the incident with the slap of the Batumi police chief, but does not show what happened before and after, the journalist's lawyer previously indicated.

The details of the case are provided in the "Caucasian Knot" report "Mzia Amaglobeli Case: Circumstances of the Arrest and the Campaign to Protect the Journalist".