Tbilisi City Court sentenced Lazare Grigoriadis, a participant of the March 2023 protests against the so-dubbed ‘’Russian Law’’ on agents, to 1 year and 6 months in prison for stabbing his father, Beka Grigoriadis, and damaging his car.
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For the incident that occurred in 2021, Lazare Grigoriadis was charged under Article 11 Prima 120 of the Criminal Code, which stands for inflicting intentional minor injury to health. The defendant pled guilty on the first trial. He was granted bail in this case originally,
Judge Nino Nachkebia requalified the case and found Lazare Grigoriadis guilty under the second part of Article 126 Prima, which implies violence committed against a family member. Lazare Grigoriadis was also found guilty in the charge under the first part of Article 187, referring to him damaging a car belonging to his father. The judge imposed a fine of 3000 GEL on him, but the said punishment was absorbed by the heftier sentence from before.
According to Lika Bitadze, the lawyer of the convict, the guilty verdict is related to Grigoriadis’ charges in the case of the ‘’Russia Law.’’
21-year-old Lazare Grigoriadis is the only one of the March 7-8 protesters who has been arrested. The prosecutor's office accuses him of attacking a policeman and burning a car belonging to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This case is still in progress. The lawyer says that if the trial of the case in the court could not be completed within 9 months after the indictment, the term of pre-trial detention would expire and they would have to release Grigoriadis, and now they have removed this risk by sentencing him to prison on different charges. Lazare Grigoriadis was charged on March 30. This term expires at the end of December.
‘’We believe that the given verdict is unlawful.
The said trial had not been scheduled for 3 years, and now it was just to reach a guilty verdict.
The sentence should have been a year or a year and a half, which the court determined only in order to cover the detention expiration deadline on other cases in which proceedings are ongoing. We will definitely appeal the verdict in the court of appeals,’’ said the lawyer.
If found guilty in the second case, Lazare Grigoriadis faces up to 11 years in prison.
Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Gharibashvili repeatedly violated the presumption of innocence against Lazare Grigoriadis.
‘’Some filthy nobody turned up, threw a Molotov cocktail at the police and decided to burn them alive. I don’t care who he is. I will be absolutely inexorable and uncompromising in this case. We will not forgive anyone for such a thing. This is raising a hand against the state. Everyone should take this as an example,’’ stated the Prime Minister on June 30, during his speech in the Parliament.
