Three minors – Aleksandre Gabashvili, Giorgi Rikadze and Demetre Chikovani – were found guilty and sentenced to multiple years in prison in the high-profile murder case of 28-year-old teacher Giga Avaliani.
Tbilisi City Court Judge Romeo Tkeshelashvili, who delivered the guilty verdict on April 5, handed down the sentences on April 8. Their jail terms were reduced automatically by one-fourth under the juvenile justice code.
Aleksandre Gabashvili, the main defendant in the case, was sentenced to 14 years in prison, but will serve ten and a half years. He was convicted under Georgia’s Criminal Code for intentional infliction of serious harm to health resulting in death, committed by a group (Article 117), in the Avaliani case, and organizing and participating in group activity accompanied by violence (Article 225) in the Avaliani case and four other episodes.
Giorgi Rikadze, Gabashvili’s friend, who recorded the attack on Avaliani on the phone, faced identical charges and received the same sentence, serving ten and a half years.
Demetre Chikovani, another friend of Gabashvili, was accused of attempted intentional infliction of serious harm to health in the Avaliani case and organizing group violence in that case and four other incidents. He was sentenced to nine years in prison and will serve six years and nine months.
Avaliani, a 28-year-old doctor and private tutor, was attacked late at night on October 1, 2025, near the entrance to his apartment block in Tbilisi. He was hospitalized with critical head injuries and fell into a coma, and died on October 24.
The guilty verdicts follow protests by the victim’s mother, Eka Kupatadze, who publicly criticized the investigation and demanded accountability of all those involved in her son’s murder, including those who allegedly knew about the planned attack on Avaliani and did not inform the police. Among the family’s key demands was that the investigation be upgraded to a group crime qualification.
In February, Georgia’s Prosecutor General’s Office accused the three defendants, who were already in pretrial detention in Avaliani’s case, of taking part in group violence in four additional episodes.
According to the authorities, Gabashvili, Rikadze, and Chikovani, together with other individuals, “used various communication methods to impersonate girls, lured selected victims outside, arranged meetings at preselected times and locations, and subjected them to group physical assaults, including brutal beatings and verbal abuse.” All four episodes, like Avaliani’s case, occurred in Tbilisi in 2025.
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