UNM Lawyer Released from Custody

Member of the United National Movement, lawyer Goga Oniani has been released from prison after serving two years for abuse of authority, falsification of evidence, political persecution and illegal detention.

Tbilisi City Court sentenced Oniani to four years and six months to prison on November 7, 2017.

However, a plea bargain was signed between the prosecution and Oniani in April 2017 and the sentence was decreased to two years.

He will not be able to take any official post for two years and three months after being released.

The Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office reported that in 2011, when Oniani served as the deputy head of Gldani-Nadzaladevi police station in Tbilisi, he illegally detained Dao Print Manager David Shatirishvili for making t-shirts with the Georgian Dream logo, prior to the 2012 parliamentary elections.

The Prosecutor’s Office said that he instructed his employees to plant drugs on Shatirishvili to charge him with drug-related crimes.

The same year, Oniani also detained DJ Levan Mdinaradze, known as DJ Rambo, for the distribution of Georgian Dream elections t-shirts. 

The United National Movement claimed that Oniani was a “political prisoner.”

By Ana Dumbadze