Imprisoned TV channel head case a “matter for court, not Gov’t - PM

Irakli Garibashvili, the Georgian Prime Minister, on Wednesday said the case involving Nika Gvaramia, the imprisoned head of the domestic Mtavari Arkhi channel who was convicted last year for improper commercial deals in 2015 and 2019 during his time at the helm of Rustavi 2 channel, was a matter of domestic courts and not the Government. 

The comment, made on the sidelines of the Georgia Cybersecurity Forum in Tbilisi, came after the channel on Tuesday said the country’s Supreme Court had declared a lawsuit by Gvaramia’s legal team inadmissible. 

In response, the United States Embassy in Georgia on Tuesday expressed its “deep concerns” about the continued imprisonment of Gvaramia, adding it had raised “questions and concerns” over the case since its beginning, including around the “timing and nature” of the charges against the media figure, as well as the sentence. 

The Tbilisi Court of Appeals in November upheld the verdict of Tbilisi City Court and sentenced Gvaramia to three years and six months in prison. 

The ruling followed the May 2022 verdict by the latter Court, which sentenced the channel head for two separate episodes in the case, one of which had caused “serious losses” to Rustavi 2 through disadvantageous commercial deals, and the other was related to obtaining property through a corrupt deal.

In comments on the domestic media environment, Garibashvili said anyone questioning media pluralism in Georgia had “no understanding” of the media environment in the country.

He stressed there had been “practically no normal, strong, independent opposition channels” before the current Government took office in 2012, contrasting the situation with “many [such] channels” in existence currently.