October 7, 2025 - The South Caucasus News - SouthCaucasusNews.com

Tbilisi City Court Judge Lela Maridashvili has ordered pretrial detention for five organizers of the October 4 rally in Georgia’s capital, including opera singer Paata Burchuladze, opposition United National Movement (UNM) members Murtaz Zodelava and Irakli Nadiradze, Strategy Aghmashenebeli member Paata Manjgaladze, and former Georgian Armed Forces colonel Lasha Beridze.

The five were arrested in the early hours of October 5 after part of an election-day rally they had organized, with the stated aim of “peacefully overthrowing” the ruling Georgian Dream government, attempted, at their call, to occupy the presidential palace. The attempt failed as riot police dispersed the crowd, leading to hours of tension around Tbilisi’s Liberty Square. Zodelava and Nadiradze were arrested near Parliament, while Burchuladze was taken into custody from the hospital where he was admitted after the dispersal.

On October 6, the Prosecutor General’s Office charged them under several articles of the Criminal Code.

Burchuladze, Zodelava, and Nadiradze were charged with “attempted seizure or blockade of strategic and particularly important facilities, committed by a group” (Article 222²), “organization and leadership of group violence” (Article 225¹), and “incitement to change the constitutional order of Georgia through violence” (Article 317). Beridze was charged under Articles 222² and 225¹, while Manjgaladze was charged under Article 225¹. All face up to nine years in prison. The decision to place them in pretrial detention was made on October 7.

Late on October 6, the Interior Ministry announced the arrest of thirteen people for their involvement in the October 4 unrest at the presidential palace in Tbilisi. A ministry official said a search was underway for two other individuals as authorities continued to identify additional suspects.

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Georgian Dream said that expelling ambassadors from the country would be “counterproductive” despite “public demand,” while accusing them of meddling and acting under the influence of the “deep state” during an October 7 briefing held in parallel with a Foreign Ministry meeting with diplomats.

“Expelling certain ambassadors would be counterproductive as long as their appointments are decided by the Euro-bureaucracy controlled by the ‘deep state,’” Georgian Dream parliamentary majority leader Irakli Kirtskhalia said in a statement, claiming that the expulsion of diplomats from Georgia is a “public demand.”

“It is clear that the expulsion of an ambassador of a particular country would trigger a series of diplomatic moves that would negatively affect Georgia’s relations with those countries,” Kirtskhalia added, after saying that Georgia “has built and developed relations with these countries over many years” and “therefore, we will not allow the Euro-bureaucracy controlled by the ‘deep state’ to damage the results achieved at the level of intergovernmental and people-to-people relations because of the undiplomatic actions of certain ambassadors.”

“We will remain in a one-sided friendship mode until Europe is freed from the influence of the ‘deep state,’” the statement added, “In parallel, we will do everything to prevent the influence of the ‘deep state’ from spreading to Georgia, as we already know well what consequences it brings for our country and our people.”

The statement largely accused Western ambassadors of breaching diplomatic boundaries and interfering in Georgia’s internal affairs, saying such behavior has been evident “especially since the start of the war in Ukraine.”

Kirtskhalia said such “undiplomatic and unfriendly behavior” is “categorically unacceptable” for the GD government. He added that the public is “completely justified in its outrage and is demanding decisive measures from Georgian Dream” against the diplomats, but said the government was maintaining a “policy of patience” by refraining from such steps.

Kirtskhalia explained that the reason was that “these countries are controlled by the deep state” and that Georgian Dream views the tensions as temporary. He said the party would not allow the statements of “ambassadors or Euro-bureaucrats” to jeopardize Georgia’s partnerships with those nations.

Kirtskhalia cited events over the past three years, including criticism from Western politicians and ambassadors, their public calls and statements, critical resolutions by the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and sanctions imposed on Georgia, which he said “clearly reflect the undiplomatic and unfriendly actions whose ultimate goal is crude interference in Georgia’s internal affairs and the subordination of the country to the ‘deep state.’”

He further claimed that “such undiplomatic actions and political pressure against Georgian Dream and the Georgian government was also the case under the previous U.S. administration and its appointed ambassadors,” adding that the retirement of Ambassador Robin Dunnigan “after Donald Trump’s return to power” confirmed this.

“Despite the actions of the previous administration and its ambassador, Georgia maintained a one-sided friendship with the United States,” Kirtskhalia said.

While Kirtskhalia was reading the statement at Georgian Dream headquarters, a brief meeting was taking place at the Foreign Ministry between Deputy Foreign Minister Giorgi Zurabashvili and members of the Western diplomatic corps. EU Ambassador Pawel Herczynski was among those present, and U.S. Acting Ambassador Alan Purcell was also reported to be there. Other representatives of diplomatic missions attended as well, though German Ambassador Peter Fischer and British Ambassador Gareth Ward, who were recently summoned by the Foreign Ministry, were not spotted.

According to the Foreign Ministry, the meeting was held to brief diplomats on the October 4 local elections and the election-day developments. GD Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili, while not present at the meeting, said the meeting aimed to provide the diplomats with “complete information” about the October 4 elections as well as the unrest in Tbilisi. “They were given the same information that our public saw broadcast live, along with details about the ongoing investigations into the incidents of October 4,” Botchorishvili said.

“The discussion also touched on the reactions we have heard from the international community and various actors, which in many cases inaccurately reflect the developments and create false perceptions about Georgia,” Botchorishvili said. “For us, it is important that assessments of the ongoing processes in Georgia, and the statements made, are objective and fair.”

“When state institutions come under attack and we hear direct calls to overthrow the government through unconstitutional means […] and these actions are neither properly identified nor assessed as they should be, as we have witnessed, naturally, we may regard this as an indirect encouragement of the very developments unfolding in Georgia,” she further said.

While Georgian Dream has recently escalated its attacks on Western diplomats, the ruling party is now, after the October 4 local elections, offering a reset in relations with Brussels and Washington.

Claiming that the EU and European countries at large are under the “deep state” diktat, Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said in a TV interview yesterday, “The deep state has one simple model and approach – either you are an agent or you are an enemy. This approach must change. The only thing we ask is this: we cannot become agents, but don’t look at us as enemies, look at us as partners. If they look at us that way, then everything will change.”

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