Tbilisi Court of Appeals has released Asaval-Dasavali journalist Dito Chubinidze, charged with treason over allegations of spreading false reports about Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, on GEL 4,000 (USD 1,550) bail on October 29.
Speaking to the media following his release, Chubinidze thanked his lawyer, Zaza Khatiasvili, Georgian society, and supporters abroad, crediting their efforts and international pressure for the outcome.
“Thank God, and thanks to Zaza Khatiasvili, my friend, who fought. We prevailed in my truth. Many thanks to Georgian society, which stood by me like this. It seems all of this together produced this result, and so did pressure from abroad,” Chubinidze said.
He added that he would not have agreed to a deal or a plea bargain with the authorities and said he would have taken the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, if necessary.
Chubinidze was arrested on October 22 after the Prosecutor General’s Office accused him of deliberately spreading false information alleging that Georgian Dream Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze had secretly agreed to transfer parts of the historic Davit Gareji monastery complex to Azerbaijan.
The journalist, working for Asaval-Dasavali, a weekly newspaper known for its conspiratorial reporting, was charged with treason, specifically sabotage, with prosecutors claiming that the information spread by Chubinidze had damaged the work of the Georgian-Azerbaijani border commission, allegations Chubinidze denies. He faces up to 4 years in prison if convicted.
The arrest came amid controversy over allegations made by jailed former Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, who, among other claims, raised questions about the alleged suicide of Lazare Jorbenadze, an ultra-conservative commentator. Months before his death in April, Jorbenadze had made the accusations against Kobakhidze in interviews with Chubinidze for Asaval-Dasavali.
Chubinidze’s arrest drew concerns from media groups, who saw jailing a journalist over the interviews as a dangerous precedent for press freedom.
Responding to the arrest on October 22, the Media Advocacy Coalition, a Georgian press freedom platform, said that regardless of a publication’s editorial policy or the truthfulness of its reporting, treason and sabotage charges against a journalist must be backed by hard evidence.
“The Prosecutor General’s Office is setting a dangerous precedent: in the future, any journalistic work, article or critical position could be deemed an obstruction to the normal functioning of a state agency and become grounds for criminal prosecution,” the coalition warned, adding that the trend threatens to “ultimately restrict the space for freedom in the country.”
Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics also reacted to the arrest, arguing that holding a journalist criminally liable on the serious charge of high treason “requires an exceptionally high evidentiary standard.” It similarly warned that the prosecution risks setting a “dangerous precedent,” adding that the authorities’ statement “fails to address these questions.”
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