According to Transparency International Georgia, no terrorist intent can be found in the actions of the leader of the Citizens, Aleksandre Elisashvili.

“An examination of the case materials concerning Aleksandre Elisashvili revealed the following circumstances:

By its judgment of 10 July 2026, the Tbilisi City Court found Alexander Elisashvili guilty of an attempt to commit a terrorist act, an offence under Article 323(1) of the Criminal Code of Georgia (“CC”), and sentenced him to 13 years’ imprisonment.

According to the judgment, Alexander Elisashvili attempted to set fire to the premises of the Tbilisi City Court with a terrorist purpose.

Our legal analysis of the judgment leads us to conclude that the court failed to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, the existence of a terrorist purpose in Elisashvili’s conduct. Accordingly, the court violated his right to a fair trial guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as other rights under the Convention; this circumstance provides a basis to consider Aleksandre Elisashvili a political prisoner, as he meets the criteria established by the Council of Europe.

In assessing the conviction handed down by the Tbilisi City Court, two issues must be clearly distinguished:

1. whether it was established that Elisashvili attempted to set fire to the building housing the reception area of the court registry; and
2. whether it was established that this conduct was committed for a terrorist purpose as defined in the Note to Article 323 of the CC.

As regards the first issue, the court’s reasoning is convincing and does not give rise to any reasonable doubt that Alexander Elisashvili attempted to set the premises on fire. The evidence relied upon by the court — witness testimony, video footage seized during the investigation, physical evidence, expert reports and other evidence — unequivocally establishes that an attempt was made to set fire to the premises housing the reception area of the court registry. Moreover, Elisashvili himself confirmed that he poured petrol over the building with the intention of burning it down.

The principal legal difficulty with the judgment therefore lies not in the establishment of the attempted arson, but in the classification of that conduct as a terrorist offence.

It is apparent from the judgment that Elisashvili was dissatisfied with developments in the country and with the functioning of the judiciary.

According to the testimony of the court bailiffs who apprehended Elisashvili, he allegedly told them after his arrest: “I love my country, I am a patriot, there is injustice in the courts, they make unjust decisions, and that is why I intended to burn it down” (see paragraphs 2.8–2.11 of the judgment).

According to the judgment, in his final statement Elisashvili explained that he had acted as he did because he had been subjected to unjustified arrests and physical violence. While still a sitting member of Parliament, he was arrested by the police live on air in 2024 and severely beaten. The footage shows the police officers who assaulted him, but no investigative action was taken against them. Subsequently, while speaking at the Courtyard Marriott, he was again arrested and had a rib broken. The identities of those police officers were also known, yet none of them was arrested. As regards his arrest inside the court building, he stated that, after being handcuffed, he was thrown onto a sofa and beaten for twenty minutes by three people while still handcuffed.

Elisashvili further stated that the bailiffs had given “disgusting and disgraceful” testimony about the court. He said that he had neither drawn nor used the pistol he was carrying. He explained that he had acted because of what was happening in the country, including the treatment of young women inside the court building: bailiffs had dragged them along the ground, spat on them and treated them disgracefully, and then claimed that “these are not women.” He stated that the protest he was carrying inside had become unbearable and that he acted as best he could. He considered it necessary to act and to “spit in the face of the authorities”, although he did not succeed. According to him, the only thing he regretted was that he had been apprehended so easily (see paragraph 2.56 of the judgment).

Thus, the factual circumstances established by the court itself point quite clearly to a political and protest-related motive for the conduct.

The fact that Elisashvili attempted to set fire to the court premises is not in dispute. Elisashvili himself admitted that he poured petrol over the building with the intention of burning it down. We therefore need not examine this issue further.

A separate question is whether a fire started in one room of the registry building, which is separate from the main court building, using a few litres of petrol could potentially have spread throughout the entire registry facility and, still less, to the main court building. The court’s conclusion on this point is unconvincing.

The court relied on the opinion of a fire-safety expert that “it is not necessary to pour petrol on every floor and in every room in order to burn down a building” (see paragraphs 2.34 and 3.35 of the judgment). The expert, however, did not state that, in the circumstances of this particular case, the fire would necessarily have spread throughout the entire registry building.

Ultimately, to any objective observer who has visited the premises of the Tbilisi City Court even once and is familiar with the layout of the buildings, the court’s finding that Elisashvili’s actions could have resulted in the destruction of all the buildings located in the court’s courtyard appears entirely unsubstantiated.

That said, irrespective of whether the court’s assessment of the amount of potential damage was correct, this issue was relevant only to determining whether Elisashvili’s conduct created a real danger of loss of life, significant property damage or other serious consequences.

As the analysis below demonstrates, however, the fact that the fire could potentially have caused significant damage does not, in itself, establish that the conduct was committed for a terrorist purpose.

Article 323(1) of the CC defines a terrorist act as “an explosion, arson, an attack against a person, the use of a weapon or any other act which creates a danger of loss of human life, significant property damage or other serious consequences, committed for a terrorist purpose.”

The constituent elements of Article 323 may therefore be analysed at three distinct levels:

1. the objective conduct — in the present case, arson;
2. the danger of loss of human life, significant property damage or other serious consequences; and
3. the terrorist purpose as a special subjective element of the offence.

The existence of the second element does not, in itself, give rise to any presumption that the third element exists. Each constituent element must therefore be established independently and supported by adequate reasoning.

Under paragraph 1 of the Note to Article 323, a “terrorist purpose” means:

1. a) intimidating the population;
2. b) compelling a state authority, a foreign state authority or an international organisation to perform or refrain from performing a particular act; or
3. c) destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of the country, a foreign country or an international organisation.

The existence of a terrorist purpose therefore cannot simply be inferred from the seriousness of the conduct or from its potential consequences.

The court was required to establish not only that Elisashvili intended to burn down the court premises and that his conduct could potentially have resulted in serious consequences, but also what specific terrorist purpose, as defined by law, he pursued in doing so.

This is particularly important given that, as noted above, Elisashvili’s own statements before the court point quite clearly to political protest as the motive for his conduct.

The most problematic aspect of the judgment is the court’s conclusion that “the motive and purpose of the offence with which Alexander Elisashvili was charged are both present” (see paragraph 3.33 of the judgment).

The fundamental difficulty with this conclusion is that the court does not clearly distinguish between motive and terrorist purpose.

On the basis of the factual circumstances established by the court, it may indeed be concluded that Elisashvili had a clear motive. He was dissatisfied with the authorities and with the functioning of the judiciary, considered the courts unjust, and wished to express that dissatisfaction in a radical manner.

This, however, does not establish the existence of a terrorist purpose as defined by law.

Political protest may constitute the motive for criminal conduct, but a political motive is not, in itself, a terrorist purpose.

In criminal law, both motive and purpose belong to the subjective side of an offence, although they perform different legal functions. Purpose may constitute either a mandatory element or an optional (additional) element of an offence.

Purpose is a constituent element — and therefore a mandatory element — where the statutory provision expressly requires a particular purpose. In such circumstances, the purpose forms an indispensable part of the offence and its presence or absence determines the legal classification of the conduct. If the specific statutory purpose is not established, the conduct cannot be classified under that provision. The person must therefore either be acquitted of that offence or the conduct must be classified under another applicable provision.

In relation to the offence under Article 323 of the CC, the purpose — specifically, the “terrorist purpose” expressly referred to in the disposition of Article 323(1) — is precisely such a mandatory element of the offence.

Consequently, in convicting Elisashvili of attempting to commit a terrorist act, the court was required to identify sufficient, reliable and relevant evidence capable of establishing, beyond reasonable doubt, the existence of the requisite terrorist purpose.

The court attached particular importance to Elisashvili’s statement that he wished to “spit in the face of the authorities”. That statement may indicate an extremely radical form of political protest against the authorities. Its meaning, however, cannot automatically be equated with an intention to destabilise a state authority or destroy the constitutional structures of the country.

The court was required to establish what Elisashvili meant by that expression in the particular circumstances and to explain why it constituted direct or circumstantial evidence of a terrorist purpose. The judgment contains no such analysis.

Moreover, the court was required to identify which specific form of terrorist purpose Elisashvili allegedly pursued: whether he intended to intimidate the population; to compel a state authority to perform or refrain from performing a particular act; or to destabilise or destroy the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of the country.

Again, the court failed to do so.

Nowhere in the judgment does the court provide a detailed, comprehensive and convincing analysis establishing that any of these statutory forms of terrorist purpose was present in Elisashvili’s conduct.

The three alternatives are considered below.

The first statutory form of terrorist purpose — intimidating the population — is not analysed at all in the relevant part of the judgment.

Nothing in Elisashvili’s statements indicates that he intended to intimidate the population. On the facts established by the court, his conduct was directed at the judiciary and the authorities generally.

The court should therefore have identified the specific evidence establishing that Elisashvili intended to intimidate the population.

It could not have answered this question in the affirmative, because no such evidence exists in the case file.

As with the first form of terrorist purpose, nothing in the case establishes that Elisashvili acted with the intention of compelling a state authority to perform or refrain from performing a particular act.

The court did not address this issue. Even had it done so, in the absence of relevant evidence it could not reasonably have concluded that, by setting fire to the reception area of the court registry, Elisashvili intended to compel the authorities to take or refrain from taking any particular action.

Finally, the possible terrorist purpose of the conduct might be said to lie in an intention to destabilise or destroy a state authority or the constitutional structures of the country.

There is no doubt that Elisashvili’s conduct was directed against the authorities and the judiciary. But conduct directed against a state authority does not automatically establish an intention to destabilise or destroy the constitutional structures of the country.

It might be argued that an attempt to set fire to a court building constitutes conduct directed against state authority. However, a fundamental distinction must be drawn between an intention to damage a particular state institution or temporarily disrupt its functioning, on the one hand, and the specific purpose of destabilising or destroying the country’s fundamental political or constitutional structures, on the other.

Proof of the former does not, without more, establish the latter.

The court therefore should have determined whether Elisashvili intended to:

• paralyse the functioning of a particular state institution;
• destabilise the judicial system;
• destroy state institutions; or
• alter or undermine the constitutional order.

The court did not attempt to answer any of these questions.

Instead, it confined its analysis to the potential dangers arising from Elisashvili’s conduct, an issue already examined above.

The court’s reasoning that a fire originating in one room could have destroyed the entire building might, at most, have been relevant to establishing the objective danger posed by the conduct — assuming, of course, that the court’s conclusion that Elisashvili could have destroyed all the buildings in the courtyard of the Tbilisi City Court, including the main court building, were itself accepted.

But even if that conclusion were factually credible — which it is not — it would still fail to answer the essential legal question: what specific terrorist purpose did Elisashvili pursue, and what evidence established that purpose?

The court was therefore required to distinguish clearly between:

• the objective elementof the offence — the danger of loss of human life, significant property damage or other serious consequences; and
• the subjective element— whether the conduct was committed with the purpose of destabilising or destroying the fundamental constitutional structures of the country.

Even if the former had been established, that would not automatically establish the latter.

In the absence of proof of a terrorist purpose, the court was required to acquit Alexander Elisashvili of the charge of attempting to commit a terrorist act and to reclassify his conduct under Article 187(2)(a) of the CC, namely, damaging or destroying another person’s property by arson, resulting in significant damage, an offence punishable by three to six years’ imprisonment.

By failing, as the prosecution had also failed, to establish one of the mandatory elements of the offence under Article 323 of the CC — the existence of a terrorist purpose — and nevertheless finding Alexander Elisashvili guilty of attempting to commit a terrorist act, the court violated a fundamental requirement of the right to a fair trial guaranteed by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”).

That requirement is that judicial decisions must contain sufficient reasons and, in particular, must indicate the reasons on which the court based its decision (Yasak v. Türkiye, no. 15669/20, [GC], 26 September 2023, § 305).

As noted above, the court failed to identify sufficient and relevant reasons specifically establishing the existence of the requisite special subjective element. Nor did it address the defence’s essential argument that a motive of political protest is not equivalent to a terrorist purpose as defined by law.

The Elisashvili case also raises serious issues under Article 7 of the Convention, in addition to those arising under Article 6.

Article 7 enshrines the principle of nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege and protects individuals against arbitrary criminal prosecution, conviction and punishment (Yüksel Yalçınkaya v. Türkiye, no. 17389/20, [GC], 5 May 2026, § 190).

One of the fundamental requirements imposed by Article 7 on domestic criminal law is that, as with the other substantive provisions of the Convention, the law must satisfy the requirement of foreseeability.

Furthermore, according to the European Court of Human Rights, a failure by domestic courts to comply with the requirements of the applicable law, or an unreasonable interpretation or application of that law, may in itself give rise to a violation of Article 7 of the Convention (ibid., § 192).

Article 7 also embodies the principle of nulla poena sine culpa (“no punishment without guilt”), since it protects every person from being punished unless and until his or her personal responsibility has been duly established.

The requirement of individualised culpability encompasses a number of interconnected principles, including the rejection of collective guilt and the requirement that, in addition to the objective elements of an offence, its subjective element — the requisite mental element (mens rea) — must also be established (ibid., § 193).

In the present case, the conviction of Alexander Elisashvili raises serious questions concerning the foreseeability of the law, the arbitrary or unreasonably expansive application of a criminal-law provision, and the principle of individual culpability.

Of particular importance is whether the application of Article 323 of the CC in the present circumstances could reasonably have been foreseeable if political protest and the causing of damage to a state institution, in the absence of specific evidence establishing a terrorist purpose, were considered sufficient to classify the conduct as a terrorist act.

Most importantly, as already demonstrated above, the Tbilisi City Court failed to establish the existence of a terrorist purpose in Elisashvili’s conduct beyond reasonable doubt.

In these circumstances, there are also strong grounds for concluding that Article 7 of the Convention was violated in respect of Alexander Elisashvili.

Finally, the judgment of the Tbilisi City Court raises serious issues under Article 18 of the Convention, taken in conjunction with Articles 6 and 7.

Article 18 prohibits restrictions permitted under the Convention from being applied for purposes other than those for which they have been prescribed.

In particular, having regard to Elisashvili’s personal circumstances, his political affiliation, his sustained conflict with the ruling party in recent years, and other relevant contextual factors, there are reasonable grounds to suspect that his conviction for a terrorist act, rather than for damage to another person’s property, may have been intended to make an example of a prominent representative of the political opposition and, at the same time, to discredit both Elisashvili personally and the political party of which he is a member and, more broadly, the pro-Western opposition as a whole.

The circumstances described above naturally raise the question whether Alexander Elisashvili may be regarded as a political prisoner.

This issue should be assessed against the criteria established by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Resolution 1900 (2012).

First and foremost, paragraph 4 of that Resolution must be taken into account. It provides that a person convicted of a terrorist offence is not to be regarded as a political prisoner if he or she has been prosecuted and convicted of a terrorist offence in accordance with national law and the European Convention on Human Rights.

An important principle follows from this provision: a formal conviction for terrorism does not, in itself, preclude political-prisoner status where the classification of the conduct as terrorism or the resulting conviction does not comply with the requirements of domestic law and the Convention.

Accordingly, in Elisashvili’s case, the decisive issue is not the fact that the court sentenced him for attempting to commit a terrorist act. Rather, the question is whether the terrorist purpose was correctly and lawfully established and, consequently, whether the proceedings and the resulting conviction were compatible with the requirements of a fair trial and other Convention guarantees.

As demonstrated above, by convicting Alexander Elisashvili not of damaging or destroying another person’s property but of attempting to commit a terrorist act, the court failed to establish the existence of a terrorist purpose beyond reasonable doubt, thereby violating Article 6 and other provisions of the Convention.

As stated in the Report accompanying PACE Resolution 1900 (2012), a person need not be completely “innocent” in order to qualify as a political prisoner (see paragraph 16 of the report).

Irrespective of the existence of some degree of culpability, a person may nevertheless be considered a political prisoner where the punishment imposed is disproportionate or discriminatory, or where the punishment was imposed in violation of the principles of a fair trial (see paragraph 10 of the report).

Accordingly, there are strong grounds for considering Alexander Elisashvili a political prisoner: he was convicted following a manifestly unfair trial, and the sentence imposed on him is manifestly disproportionate to the conduct he actually committed.

Final Conclusion

• In light of the evidence in the case, the court had sufficient grounds to conclude that Alexander Elisashvili attempted to set fire to the court premises.
• The fundamental problem with the judgment, however, lies in the classification of that conduct as a terrorist act.
• The court correctly identified the political motive underlying Elisashvili’s conduct. He was dissatisfied with the functioning of the judiciary and the authorities, regarded his conduct as an expression of political protest, and sought to resist the authorities.
• Political motive and terrorist purpose, however, are distinct legal concepts.
• The court was required to determine precisely which terrorist purpose allegedly motivated Elisashvili and what specific evidence established the existence of that purpose. It failed to discharge that obligation.
• By finding Alexander Elisashvili guilty of attempting to commit a terrorist act despite failing to establish the existence of the requisite terrorist purpose, the court violated his right to a fair trial and other rights guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights.
• These circumstances provide substantial grounds for considering Alexander Elisashvili a political prisoner. Aleksandre Elisashvili’s name will be included in our organisation’s list of political prisoners”, reads the statement of the organization,