Archpriest found guilty for plotting murder, sentenced to 9 years

The archpriest who was detained for allegedly plotting the murder of a high-ranking clergy member of the Georgian Orthodox Church has been found guilty.

Tbilisi City Court announced its verdict for the case this afternoon and sentenced archpriest Giorgi Mamaladze to nine years behind bars.

The judge changed the qualification of the case though; initially, Mamaladze was charged with a premeditated attempted murder with mercenary purposes, which was an aggravating circumstance for him. Today, the judge removed the mercenary part from his charge and only found him guilty for premeditated attempted murder.

Mamaladze was found guilty for illegal possession of a firearm as well and he was sentenced to two years of imprisonment for this charge, but according to the Georgian Criminal Code, when imposing a final sentence for cumulative crimes, the more severe sentence shall absorb the less severe sentence, meaning the archpriest final sentence was nine years in prison.

Mamaladze was arrested on February 10 at Tbilisi International Airport, with police discovering cyanide on his person during a search.

Law enforcement agencies claimed the arrested archpriest was planning to travel to Germany, where Patriarch of Georgia Ilia II was undergoing a laparoscopic gallbladder surgery at a Berlin clinic.

The patriarch’s secretary Shorena Tetruashvili was also in Germany during the medical treatment of Ilia II. Later, law enforcers announced that Mamaladze was plotting to murder Tetruashvili.