Tbilisi City Court imposes 12 year prison term for terrorist activities

Tbilisi City Court sentenced a Georgian man to 12 years in prison for being a member of a terrorist organisation and participating in terrorist activities. 

The Court  accepted the evidence provided by Georgia’s Chief Prosecutor’s Office, which claimed 30-year-old David Borchashvili,  from the country’s eastern, mainly Muslim-populated Pankisi Gorge, was a member of terrorist organisation-Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Borchashvili joined the terrorist organisation in Syria and was participating in the armed military operations conducted by the terrorist group,” the Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement after the Court verdict was announced.

Borchashvili was detained by Georgia’s law enforcers at Tbilisi Shota Rustaveli International Airport on November 22 last year. 

Borchashvili’s family claimed he had never been to Syria. 

However video released on the internet after his detention showed Borchashvili  in a foreign country alongside  armed people on a military vehicle. 

Borchashvili’s lawyer Gela Nikolaishvili said his client had certain connections with Syria’s Free Army, which was not a terrorist group, and fought against the Islamic State and Syria’s current President Bashar al-Assad. 

Borchashvili can appeal the Tbilisi City Court verdict to the Court of Appeals.