On January 25, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced two people, Akaki Chikobava and Giorgi Khasaia, to the pre-trial detention in connection with the Kekelidze eviction. Khasaia and Kekelidze are accused of damaging the car of the National Bureau of Enforcement.
The defendants are charged under Article 187, Part 2, Subsection “c” of the Criminal Code of Georgia, which provides for the punishment of a group for damaging or destroying another person’s property, resulting in substantial damage.
The defendants partially confessed, saying that they had damaged the car, but not in a group. According to their lawyer, Khasaia and Chikobava agreed to pay for the damage.
Today, a group of supporters gathered at the Tbilisi City Court to demand the release of Chikobava and Khasaia, who are also members of the Khma [Voice] movement advocating for workers’ rights. Meanwhile, the academic staff, including nearly forty people from Tbilisi State University, where Chikobava teaches, issued a statement saying that the removal of Dr. Akaki Chikobava from the educational process will be harmful both to the Georgian educational and scientific space and to Akaki Chikobava himself “as a promising young researcher.
Both Khasaia and Chikobava were arrested on January 23 after a dramatic eviction on Kekelidze Street in Tbilisi which turned into a tense standoff between the authorities and the evicted family and a group of protesters, including the aforementioned individuals. A further 18 people were detained on the same day, but unlike Khasaia and Chikobava, they were only charged with administrative offences.
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