Court leaves actor Andro Chichinadze, comedian Onise Tskhadadze and 9 others arrested during protests in custody

Actor Andro Chichinadze, comedian Onise Tskhadadze and 9 others, who were arrested on charges of participating in group violence during the protests near the parliament, remain in custody. This decision was followed by dissatisfaction from the public present in the courtroom. They chanted "slaves", "Russians".

Those detained by the decision of Tbilisi City Court Judge Ketevan Jachvadze - Andro Chichinadze, Onise Tskhadadze, Jano Archaia, Ruslan Sivakov, Luka Jabua, Guram Mirtskhulava, Valeri Tetrashvili, Giorgi Terishvili, Irakli Kerashvili, Revaz Kinadze and Sergey Kukharchuk - remain in the penitentiary.

Before announcing the decision, the judge Ketevan Jachvadze also explained the extension of the pre-trial hearing. As Jachvadze noted, due to the volume of the case, the investigation period has been extended several times, and in this case, specific names and surnames have nothing to do with it. After this, the lawyers also filed a motion to disqualify the judge, which Jachvadze did not satisfy.

The lawyers requested that the defendants be released without a preventive measure, and as an alternative, they asked the court to release them on bail of 1,000 or 10,000 GEL, while some of the lawyers entrusted the court with determining the amount of the bail.

The prosecutor's office requested that all the defendants remain in custody.

All the defendants attended the hearing. Some of them even took the opportunity to speak. They do not admit to the charges brought against them.

Michał Kobosko - we hope that your government eventually would either choose the European way, the democratic way or would resign seeing the number, the size and scale of the citizens' protests