Tbilisi City Court terminated imprisoned journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli’s lawsuit against Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze over televised comments in which he said, among others, that she was a “party activist,” “funded from abroad,” and acting on a “specific instruction” to “insult” the police. The termination ended the case without considering the merits
According to Netgazeti, Amaghlobeli accused Kobakhidze of defamation, violation of the presumption of innocence, and an attempt to damage her honour and dignity.
Judge Liana Kazhashvili terminated the lawsuit on April 24, marking the second such decision since November 2025, when Judge Davit Akobidze rejected the first lawsuit filed by Amaghlobeli against Kobakhidze. Neither Kobakhidze nor his legal representative appeared at the April 24 hearing.
Mzia Amaghlobeli, director and co-founder of online media outlets Batumelebi and Netgazeti, was arrested in January 2025 after slapping Batumi Police Chief Irakli Dgebuadze during a tense protest night and was sentenced to two years in prison in August. Her imprisonment has been widely condemned as politically motivated, with multiple domestic and international groups calling for her release.
Her latest defamation lawsuit stemmed from three separate comments made by Kobakhidze in 2025 on various broadcasters.
On January 29, speaking on pro-government Imedi TV, Kobakhidze said that Amaghlobeli “was sticking stickers on police officers,” and that “this violation of the law was in no way connected to her journalistic activity,” adding that “she was acting there as a party activist” instead.
On January 30, on Georgia’s Public Broadcaster, Kobakhidze said Amaghlobeli was a “foreign-funded” individual, adding that donors to her organizations “bear responsibility” for what he termed as “violence” against a police officer.
On April 16, on pro-government Rustavi 2, Kobakhidze said that while many protest-linked detainees were “victims,” the same did not apply to Amaghlobeli, “who was carrying out a specific instruction when she insulted the police officer. Her assignment was to diminish the police and to humiliate the dignity of the police.”
According to the lawsuit, these statements were defamatory and violated Amaghlobeli’s presumption of innocence, as a final verdict in her case had not yet been issued at the time.
“These statements, apart from their clearly defamatory nature, directly violate her [Amaghlobeli’s] presumption of innocence as a defendant in a criminal case, serve to create a negative public attitude toward her, and most alarmingly, encourage the public to believe in the defendant’s guilt in a serious violent crime and to form a prejudged position on the court’s assessment of the facts before a verdict is issued,” the lawsuit reads.
Speaking at the April 24 hearing, Amaghlobeli said she would not have taken the matter to court if Kobakhidze’s statements had been merely matters of opinion, rather than “the deliberate spread of false facts, no matter how morally and emotionally unacceptable, provocative, and shocking those statements may have been.”
In November, the Kutaisi Court of Appeal upheld the initial two-year sentence against Amaghlobeli imposed by the Batumi City Court in August. The decision became final after Georgia’s Supreme Court refused to examine the case on the merits, effectively exhausting domestic legal remedies.
During her time in prison, Amaghlobeli has received many international recognitions, including the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought – the European Union’s top human rights award.
Also Read:
This post is also available in:
