Gvaramia was convicted of abuse of power and sentenced to over three years in prison in 2022 in a case that the EU and U.S. said could have been “politically motivated.” He was released last summer after being pardoned by pro-Western President Salome Zurabishvili.
Earlier on Thursday, authorities in the South Caucasus country searched the homes of two researchers with the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank. Police reportedly confiscated phones and computers at the apartments of Eto Buziashvili and Sopo Gelava, who monitor disinformation and Russian influence in Georgia.
A report published by the think tank’s Digital Forensic Research Lab earlier this month, authored by Buziashvili, Gelava and their colleagues, warned that since the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, the Georgian government has prioritized “obtaining economic benefits from Russia and appeasing its northern neighbor.”
In a statement, the Atlantic Council said that “our Georgian colleagues, Sopo Gelava and Eto Buziashvili, are engaged in independent, non-partisan work aimed at defending and strengthening democracy from those who would undermine it in online spaces, including research related to foreign influence efforts, the targeting of marginalized communities, and other online harms.”
At the same time, investigators also searched the office of U.S. tech giant Concentrix, a Fortune 500 firm that specializes in outsourcing. According to local media, the company was being probed by the Finance Ministry in an unusual move ahead of the nationwide poll.
“There’s a deliberate attempt to intimidate people — voters, civil society and opposition politicians,” said Luka Pertaia, a prominent Georgian reporter working with RFERL. “There’s a feeling in opposition circles, the media and NGOs that people who have links to the West might be targeted.”
