Mzia Amaglobeli’s lawyers are calling on the Kutaisi Court of Appeal to discontinue the administrative offense case, as they claim that the police falsified evidence in the case.

As human rights defenders explain, tomorrow, on May 20, the Kutaisi Court of Appeal will consider Mzia Amaglobeli’s complaint without an oral hearing, which concerns “the illegal and unjustified fining of Mzia Amaglobeli by the Batumi City Court under Article 173 of the Code of Administrative Offenses.”

“As is known to the public, Mzia Amaglobeli is being punished and retaliated against in several directions for her journalistic activities and active civic position. One of the cases initiated by the system against her is related to Article 173 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, which refers to verbal insult to a police officer. On January 11, 2025, during a protest rally in front of the building of the Police Department of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, Mzia Amaglobeli was initially arrested by the then Chief of the Adjara Police, Grigol Beselia, for placing a protest sticker on a wall. However, since the police do not have the authority to administratively detain Mzia Amaglobeli for placing a sticker, the arrest report for Mzia Amaglobeli was falsified and it was indicated in it that Mzia Amaglobeli had committed an administrative offense provided for in Article 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, on the basis of which she was arrested. Later, an offense report was drawn up under the same article and Mzia Amaglobeli was accused of committing an offense that she did not commit. This case was considered by the Batumi City Court on March 18, 2025, which made a completely unfounded and illegal decision. The consideration of the case was formal in nature, the judge did not explore the circumstances of essential importance to the case, distributed the burden of proof incorrectly and unfoundedly relied only on the false testimony given by the police officer and also on 2 video files created on the basis of falsification of evidence, which have no connection with the case under consideration. In particular, the judge relied on the video recordings that the Batumi Police Department had presented to the court as evidence, however, none of these video recordings are relevant to the case. Based on the video recordings, the Ministry of Internal Affairs argued that it was precisely because of the actions depicted in this video that Mzia Amaglobeli was detained on administrative charges. Despite the fact that the lawyers indicated to the court that the videos were not recorded before Mzia Amaglobeli's detention, the judge did not take into account the aforementioned indication and the presented evidence (the witness/journalist who filmed this video), nor did he indicate in the appealed decision why he did not take into account the defense's position. It is also worth noting that this footage does not confirm the fact of Mzia Amaglobeli committing Article 173, since it does not reflect any illegal behavior by Mzia Amaglobeli. Considering that this video material became the basis for considering Mzia Amaglobeli a lawbreaker, and her first detention is also related to the criminal case and her detention to this day is justified by this illegal administrative detention, we would like to present to the public new evidence that unequivocally establishes that (a) the 2 video recordings presented by the police were recorded several hours after the administrative detention of Mzia Amaglobeli and reflect the detention of the last detainee (L. Gabaidze), which was carried out by the police at 00:43, while Mzia Amaglobeli was administratively detained at 22:58, and (b) the testimony of the only police witness, Deputy Chief of Batumi Police G. Vanadze, is not true. We have additionally submitted evidence confirming the falsification of the video evidence and the witness's false testimony to the Kutaisi Court of Appeal. With the appeal, we request the court to terminate the administrative offense case initiated against Mzia Amaglobeli due to its groundlessness and to cancel it. The decision made by the Batumi City Court is completely illegal and unfounded. At the same time, we appeal to the Prosecutor General of Georgia to immediately initiate an investigation and criminal prosecution against the Deputy Head of the Batumi Police Department G. Vanadze and other police and MIA officials participating in the administrative proceedings against Mzia Amaglobeli, due to the presence of signs of a crime under Articles 332 (abuse of official authority), 369 (falsification of evidence) and 370 (false testimony) of the Criminal Code of Georgia. We publicly appeal to the Prosecutor General to inform us about the decision made as soon as possible, since the detention of Mzia Amaglobeli is still based on these falsified administrative proceedings,” the lawyers noted.