(The Case of Jano Archaya, Ruslan Sivakov, Luka Jebua, Andro Chichinadze, Guram Mirtskhulava, Onise Tskhadadze, Valeri Tetrashvili, Giorgi Terishvili, Irakli Kerashvili, Revaz Kiknadze, and Sergei Kukharchuk)
Introduction
In a review [1] published on March 11, 2025, we provided an assessment and analysis of the "group violence" case fabricated by the prosecution and the Ministry of Internal Affairs under the influence of Bidzina Ivanishvili and the "Georgian Dream" party against Zviad Tsetskhladze, Vepkhia Kasradze, Vasil Kadzelashvili, Irakli Miminoshvili, Tornike Goshadze, Nikoloz Javakhishvili, Giorgi Gorgadze, and Insaf Aliyev (hereinafter referred to as the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case").
Now, we turn our attention to another case involving charges of participation in the same alleged group violence, which is associated with the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case" but has been technically separated into an independent proceeding. This case involves 11 defendants: Jano Archaya, Ruslan Sivakov, Luka Jebua, Andro Chichinadze, Guram Mirtskhulava, Onise Tskhadadze, Valeri Tetrashvili, Giorgi Terishvili, Irakli Kerashvili, Revaz Kiknadze, and Sergei Kukharchuk. All eleven have been charged by the prosecution under Article 225, Part 2 of the Criminal Code ("participation in group violence"), which carries a prison sentence of four to six years.
For the purposes of this case (hereinafter referred to as the "Chichinadze and Others Case"), we examined 13 additional volumes of case materials provided by Onise Tskhadadze’s defense, in addition to the 14 volumes of the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case." These materials include evidence gathered by the prosecution as of February 25, 2025. The facts, findings, and legal assessments presented in this review are based on the case materials of both the "Chichinadze and Others Case" and the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case."
An analytical article [2] on the "Chichinadze and Others Case" was published back in December 2024. However, since the investigation was still in its early stages at that time and a substantive discussion of the case would have been premature, our analysis focused solely on the illegality and inappropriateness of the defendants’ pretrial detention and its incompatibility with the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Based on the materials now available to us, we can conclude that all eleven defendants are innocent of the charges brought against them, as there is no legal basis for the alleged crime. Furthermore, as of February 25, 2025, the case materials do not contain a totality of coherent, clear, and credible evidence that would prove the guilt of any of the defendants beyond a reasonable doubt.
Information About the Defendants
The defendants in this case are also mostly young individuals. Similar to the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case," in this case as well, the vast majority of them only met each other in the defendant's seat, which rules out the crime they are accused of.
As previously mentioned, some of the defendants are well-known in society. Andro Chichinadze is a popular actor who also enjoys a strong presence on social media. Likewise, Onise Tskhadadze is well-known as a comedian, stand-up performer, and digital creator. He frequently shared information on social media regarding ongoing protests.
Initiation of the Investigation and Separation of Criminal Case
As mentioned in the article about the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case," the reason for launching an investigation into the so-called "group violence" case was a report filed on December 3, 2024, by Davit Kurdovanidze, the head of the Search Division of the Organized Crime Department of the Central Criminal Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The report was addressed to Davit Keburia, head of the Main Division for Combating Organized Crime. In it, Kurdovanidze informed his superior that the protest, which began near Parliament on November 28, had turned violent. According to him, some protesters threw stones, metal objects, bottles filled with stones, pyrotechnics, and other items toward the Parliament building. Based on "available information," he claimed that the violent actions were "organized" by Vepkhia Kasradze, Vasil Kadzelashvili, Zviad Tsetskhladze, and others.
The report also alleged that these individuals were "calling on protesters to rebel, disobey lawful police orders, and teaching them how to make life-threatening and hazardous explosive and incendiary devices." Attached to the report was a list of 48 people whom the author claimed were in contact with the alleged organizers and carried out their "assignments." Among those listed were individuals who were later formally charged.
Thus, even at the time of drafting the report, the investigation had already devised a predetermined scheme, essentially based on the long-standing and now outdated political messaging of the ruling "Georgian Dream" party regarding "revolutions" and "coups." To implement this fabricated scheme, investigators assigned various roles to the defendants in the "Tsetskhladze and Others" and "Chichinadze and Others" cases—19 individuals in total. Some were targeted on purpose, while the majority were randomly selected.
The General Nature of the Charges
As noted in the analysis of the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case," one of the fundamental principles of criminal law is the principle of individual responsibility. Civilized legal systems do not recognize collective responsibility. With rare exceptions, a person is only held accountable for their own actions. In cases of group crimes, the role and function of each defendant in the collective act must be clearly established.
Despite this universally recognized criminal law standard, the charges in these cases are formulated in an extremely vague and general manner.
For example, in the formulation of charges against Andro Chichinadze, the description of his specific role is limited to the claim that he was present at the protest on November 29, 2024, and "actively participated in a group violent act." Specifically, the charge states only that he "threw a stick in the direction of law enforcement officers, thereby endangering the lives and health of both the officers and others present in the area." However, the charge does not specify what consequences resulted from this action, whose life or health was endangered, how exactly this danger was manifested, what the essence of the "group action" was, with whom Andro Chichinadze was connected in carrying out this act, whose orders he was following, and other such crucial details.
As in the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case," the evidence presented by the prosecution in this case consists of inadmissible materials that could not have led an impartial prosecution to conclude that the defendants committed the crimes they are accused of.
However, unlike the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case," where audiovisual materials were downloaded from various internet sites and platforms, in the "Chichinadze and Others Case," the audiovisual materials were "collected" from the Strategic Communications Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). The case file includes multiple pieces of evidence confirming that during the protests in November-December 2024, the MIA had deployed operators from its Strategic Communications Department to the vicinity of the Parliament to record videos of the protesters. Notably, one of these operators was injured during the protest and was later recognized as a victim in both cases.
The key issue here is twofold: what legal basis existed for deploying MIA's Strategic Communications Department operators to a protest; and how legal was the filming of protesters by these operators. These two aspects will be analyzed below.
According to Article 10, subparagraph "უ" of the Regulations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, approved by Government Decree No. 337 on December 13, 2013:
"The main tasks of the Strategic Communications Department include developing, planning, implementing, and monitoring the strategic communication policy, communication concepts, strategies, and action plans of the Ministry; planning and implementing special communication campaigns to inform the public about the reforms planned and carried out by the Ministry, as well as to raise public awareness; informing the public about ongoing processes within the Ministry; establishing relationships with state, non-governmental, and other public organizations within its competence; conducting research and analytical work to study public opinion and process thematic materials; informing the Ministry's leadership about public opinion; organizing thematic meetings, press conferences, and briefings with the public and media representatives; developing joint television projects with public broadcasters and/or private media companies; disseminating information through media channels; managing the Ministry's official website and other official pages on social networks; creating and updating the Ministry’s photo and video archive; and carrying out other powers granted by Georgian legislation within its competence."
This provision does not include the filming of protests or protest participants as part of the department's legally assigned tasks, raising significant concerns about the legality of its actions in this case.
According to Article 4 of the Statute of the Strategic Communications Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, approved by Order No. 48 of the Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia on April 2, 2018, the department's objectives include developing and planning the strategic communication policy of the ministry's system, planning and implementing communication campaigns regarding the reforms planned and executed by the ministry, informing the public about ongoing processes within the ministry, conducting public opinion research, maintaining relations with the media and non-governmental organizations, and other issues related to the public relations sphere of any body or organization.
Clearly, this has no connection to the objectives of detecting, preventing, or investigating crimes. According to Subparagraph "ი" of Article 5 of the same statute, although the department's authority includes "photo and video recording of ongoing events, as well as the registration and archiving of recorded materials," it is evident that this, too, pertains to public relations objectives.
Based on the above, there was no legal basis for sending operators from the Strategic Communications Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) to film the protest.
According to Subparagraph "ვ.ბ" of Paragraph 2 of Article 17 of the Law of Georgia "On Police," the police conduct covert investigative actions as provided by the Criminal Procedure Code of Georgia, including electronic surveillance using technical means, as well as covert video and audio recording, cinematography, and photography, provided that their use does not harm human life, health, or the environment.
According to Subparagraph "e" of Paragraph 1 of Article 143¹ of the Criminal Procedure Code of Georgia, one type of covert investigative action is "covert video or audio recording, photography."
According to Paragraph 1 of Article 143³ of the same code, a covert investigative action is carried out based on a court ruling, following a motivated motion by a prosecutor. According to Paragraph 6 of the same article, in the case of "urgent necessity," a covert investigative action may be conducted/initiated without a court ruling, based on a prosecutor’s motivated decision, on the condition that within no later than 24 hours from the start of the covert investigative action, the prosecutor must submit a motion to the district (city) court requesting legal recognition of the urgent covert investigative action conducted.
In this case, similar to the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case," there is neither a court ruling nor a prosecutor's motivated decision that would authorize the operators of the Strategic Communications Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) to covertly record video or take photographs of the protest participants.
Accordingly, if the video recording and photography of the protest participants were conducted covertly, it constitutes an illegal act. Furthermore, it may even fall under the elements of the crime outlined in Article 157 of the Criminal Code ("illegal acquisition, storage, use, dissemination, or other provision of access to information related to private life or personal data, which caused significant harm").
Some may argue that the video recording or photography of protest participants by the operators of the MIA’s Strategic Communications Department did not constitute a covert investigative action and that the video recording and/or photography was conducted openly. However, the materials in the criminal case do not contain any documentary evidence to support this claim.
If the video recording or photography of protest participants by MIA’s Strategic Communications Department operators did not constitute a covert investigative action, then such activity falls under the scope of the "Law on Personal Data Protection."
According to Subparagraph "a" of Paragraph 1 of Article 4 of the "Law on Personal Data Protection," personal data must be processed lawfully, fairly, and transparently for the data subject—unless the law provides for an exception.
The law distinguishes between "personal data" and "special category data" (Subparagraphs "a" and "b" of Article 3). The latter includes data that, among other circumstances, relate to a natural person’s "political opinions, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs," as well as "biometric data."
In turn, "biometric data" refers to "data processed using technical means that relate to the physical, physiological, or behavioral characteristics of a data subject (such as facial image, voice characteristics, or fingerprint data) and allow for their unique identification or verification of identity" (Subparagraph "d" of Article 3).
Based on the above, it is beyond doubt that the video recordings and photographs depicting the accused in this case constitute "special category data" and "biometric data."
According to Subparagraph "f" of Paragraph 1 of Article 6 of the "Law on Personal Data Protection," "the processing of special category data is permissible only if the person responsible for the processing ensures the guarantees provided by this law for the protection of the rights and interests of the data subject," and "the processing of special category data is necessary for the purposes of crime prevention (including appropriate analytical research), crime investigation, criminal prosecution, the administration of justice... and such processing is provided for by the relevant law or a subordinate normative act issued on the basis of the law."
According to Paragraph 3 of the same article, the responsibility for justifying the legal basis for processing special category data lies with the person responsible for the processing.
According to Paragraph 1 of Article 9 of the same law, biometric data may be processed only if, among other circumstances, it is necessary for crime prevention, crime investigation, criminal prosecution, or the administration of justice. However, according to Paragraph 2 of the same article, the person responsible for processing must define in writing, prior to processing, the purpose and scope of biometric data processing, the duration of data storage, the rules and conditions for data retention and destruction, as well as mechanisms for protecting the rights of the data subject.
In this case, even if we assume that the video recording and photography of the defendants did not constitute a covert investigative action and were conducted openly and transparently for the defendants—which, in itself, is not a proven fact—since these recordings constitute the defendants' "special category data" and, moreover, "biometric data," the case materials should have included the following documentary evidence to substantiate the legality of such video recording and photography:
No such documentation exists in the case materials. It is highly likely that the operators of the MIA’s Strategic Communications Department were deployed to the protest based on oral instructions from their superior, which contradicts the above-mentioned requirements of the "Law on Personal Data Protection."
d) Videos Obtained through Illegal Recording Are Inadmissible Evidence
As already mentioned, there is no court order or prosecutor's decision in the case that would have made this covert investigative action lawful. Moreover, if the video recording and/or photographing of the participants in the protest did not constitute a covert investigative action, which in itself is questionable, the case materials also lack a written act from an authorized official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) that would have provided a legal basis for the collection of such data.
According to the first part of Article 72 of the Criminal Procedure Code, evidence obtained through a substantial violation of the law and other evidence obtained based on such evidence, if it worsens the legal situation of the defendant, is inadmissible and has no legal force. This criminal procedural law doctrine, known as the "fruit of the poisoned tree" doctrine, effectively renders all the case materials involving these defendants nonexistent. According to part 6 of the same article, inadmissible evidence cannot form the basis for a court decision.
Furthermore, according to the first part of Article 78 of the same Code, a document has evidentiary value if its origin is known and it is authentic. In all described cases, in addition to the fact that these covert video/audio recordings were obtained without court permission or a prosecutor's decision, their authenticity has not been established, as no evidence to confirm this authenticity is present in the case.
Therefore, the main evidence on the basis of which criminal prosecution was initiated against Jano Archaya, Ruslan Sivakov, Luka Jabua, Andro Chichinadze, Guram Mirtchulava, Onise Tskhadadze, Valeri Tetrashvili, Giorgi Terishvili, Irakli Kerasheli, Revaz Kiknadze, and Sergei Kukharchuk, is inadmissible. Also inadmissible are other potentially lawful pieces of evidence obtained on the basis of this inadmissible evidence, including search protocols, habitoscopic expert opinions, and others, which are present in the case materials.
In such circumstances, any conscientious prosecutor would not have even initiated criminal prosecution, let alone waste administrative resources on sending these futile and empty cases to court. Any conscientious judge would not have imposed a preventive measure on the defendants in such a case and would have dismissed the criminal prosecution at the pre-trial hearing.
Lack of Effective Judicial Control over Relevant Investigative Actions
For all the defendants, the case contains records of personal searches, searches of their residences, and/or, in some individual cases, searches of their vehicles. Formally, all these investigative actions were either carried out based on court authorization or, in the case of "urgent necessity," based on a decision by the investigator, the "legality" of which was later recognized by the court.
However, it is a well-known fact, which is also reflected in the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, that in Georgia, there is no effective and genuine judicial review over interference with constitutional rights such as the inviolability of one's private and family life. We have written in detail about this in our analytical study [3] above regarding the illegal practice of "planting" drugs. Courts automatically approve motions submitted by prosecutors either beforehand or post factum, without examining the circumstances of the case.
In our analysis of the "Tsetskhladze and others" case, we pointed out how the judge of the Tbilisi City Court, Tamar Mchedlishvili, "managed" to review and approve 21 motions from prosecutors on December 5, 2024, regarding the legitimacy of investigative actions (searches and seizures) conducted without a judge's authorization. The same judge did the same on December 7, when she reviewed and approved several more motions from the prosecutor.
Lack of Essential Elements for Participation in Group Violence
As we pointed out in relation to the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case”, according to the established practice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, the essential element for the crime of "organizing, leading, and participating in group violence" under Article 225 of the Criminal Code is pre-organized group action. Spontaneous joint action is not enough to constitute the criminal offense under Article 225.
Specifically, according to the established practice of the Supreme Court, in order for the defendants to be found guilty of committing a crime under Article 225 of the Criminal Code, the prosecution must present a body of evidence that, beyond a reasonable doubt, satisfies an objective observer that the participants in the group violent act:
Like in the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case”, there is no evidence in this case either – no witness testimony, no audio-video recordings, no written documents – that would prove the defendants were previously coordinated to carry out group violent actions, that they had an organizer and leader who issued orders and instructions that the group members followed, that they were aware of the organized group's objective, and that they knew about the collective intent of criminal activity.
Moreover, except for possibly one exception, the defendants did not know each other at all and had no contact with each other prior to the charges. Even if they were throwing some objects, although as outlined above there are no legally obtained and admissible pieces of evidence in the case to prove this, they were doing this spontaneously, chaotically, based on the specific situation, and not in a prearranged and organized manner.
Based on the above, the charge of participation in group violence brought against all eleven defendants is unfounded due to the lack of the constituent elements of the crime under Article 225 of the Criminal Code.
No Other Crimes Are Apparent in the Actions of the Defendants
a) No harm allegedly caused to the injured police officers can be attributed to the defendants
As we noted in our analysis of the "Tsetskhladze and others" case, based on the established practice of the Supreme Court and lower-instance courts, when the court finds that the elements of group violence do not exist, it examines whether a crime under Subparagraph "b" of Part 11 of Article 126 of the Criminal Code was committed and, in the case of a positive response, reclassifies the crime.
Article 126 of the Criminal Code belongs to a group of result-based crimes. There must be an effect of the criminal action – beating or some other form of violence – that causes physical pain to the victim, but not the result defined under Article 120 ("intentional minor injury").
To prove this effect, there must be a victim who directly suffered physical pain as a result of the actions of the defendant – whether it was beating or other forms of violence. In other words, there must be a causal link between the action committed and the resulting harm.
According to the first and second parts of Article 8 of the Criminal Code, "If a crime under the relevant article of this Code is only considered complete when the action results in a criminal outcome or creates a specific threat of such an outcome, it is necessary to establish the causal connection between the action and the outcome or threat."
Based on the above, the defendants could only be charged with the crime under Subparagraph "b" of Part 11 of Article 126 of the Criminal Code if it was proven that a specific police officer experienced physical pain as a result of an object thrown by a specific defendant.
In this case, the same 31 police officers were recognized as victims who were also recognized as victims in the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case”. These police officers gave testimony twice: once in the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case” and again in the "Chichinadze and Others Case”. In both cases, the damage described by none of these police officers can be attributed to any of the defendants in either the "Tsetskhladze and Others" or the "Chichinadze and Others" case, as there is no evidence proving a causal link between the alleged action and the resulting harm.
Moreover, as noted in the "Tsetskhladze and others" case, in most cases, it is theoretically impossible to attribute the harm to any defendant, as the time, place, and circumstances of the damage described by the injured police officers do not match the time, place, and circumstances of the alleged criminal actions of the defendants.
b) No alleged damaged to the property may be attributed to the defendants
The above reasoning about the lack of causal connection also applies to the alleged property damage, which, according to the prosecution, was suffered by various state and local government bodies.
In this case, as in the "Tsetskhladze and Others Case”, a total of 10 state and local government institutions were recognized as victims. These include the Parliament of Georgia, the Special Tasks Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Public Safety Center "112" of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the City of Tbilisi Municipality, the Tbilisi Municipality Transport and Urban Development Agency, the Mtatsminda District Administration of Tbilisi, and others. According to the prosecution, in both cases, the damage caused to these institutions by the defendants amounts to approximately 1.8 million GEL.
Once again, there is no evidence in the case to confirm that any damaged surveillance camera, cobblestone, asphalt surface, park bench, trash can, Robocop helmet, air mask, or other equipment, bush, plant, or any other object, which the organizations listed as victims in the case claim to have been damaged or destroyed, was damaged as a result of the actions of any specific defendant. It is entirely unclear how a defendant can be held responsible, either wholly or partially, for property damage amounting to 1.8 million GEL when their "criminal actions," according to the charges, only involved throwing stones, sticks, bottles, or other objects "toward the police."
Moreover, there are other absurd circumstances regarding property damage in the case, which make the indictment of the defendants appear almost comical. For example, a representative of the Tbilisi City Municipality, recognized as a victim in both cases, describes the damage to the municipality’s balance sheet surveillance cameras, mentioning that the cameras were located in remote places such as Orbeliani Square, Dry Bridge, Deda Ena Park, the underground passage near the first building of Tbilisi State University, the building of the Public Broadcaster on Kostava Avenue, and the "Mziuri" Children's Park. Perhaps only the prosecutors in these cases know how the damage to cameras located so far from the Parliament building should be attributed to the defendants, who are charged with committing the crime "near the Parliament."
The above reasoning about the lack of causal connection would also be valid with respect to any other result-oriented crime, such as intentional minor bodily injury (Article 118 of the Criminal Code) or intentional light bodily injury (Article 120 of the Criminal Code).
It is possible that the actions of the defendants might have met the elements of a crime under Article 153 of the Criminal Code, but only if the legality, origin, and authenticity of the audio-video material in the case had been proven, which, as already noted, is not the case.
Conclusion
Ultimately, as in the case of “Tsetskhladze and Others”, the analysis presented above leads us to conclude that:
Participants in the fabricated case against the defendants:
Judges
Prosecutors
Ministry of Internal Affairs employees
Links
[1] https://transparency.ge/en/post/politically-motivated-case-so-called-group-violence-against-8-protest-participants
[2] https://www.transparency.ge/en/post/assessment-pretrial-detention-actor-andro-chichinadze-and-other-arrested-individuals
[3] https://www.transparency.ge/en/post/repressions-against-civil-protesters-fabricated-drug-crime-charges
[4] https://transparency.ge/sites/default/files/2_11eng.png
[5] https://transparency.ge/sites/default/files/9mosamartleg.png
[6] https://transparency.ge/sites/default/files/9mosamartleeng.png
[7] https://transparency.ge/sites/default/files/10proeng_1.png
[8] https://transparency.ge/en/tags/%E1%83%9B%E1%83%90%E1%83%A0%E1%83%97%E1%83%9A%E1%83%9B%E1%83%90%E1%83%A1%E1%83%AF%E1%83%A3%E1%83%9A%E1%83%94%E1%83%91%E1%83%90
