A former close associate of Georgian ruling-party founder Bidzina Ivanishvili has been arrested near the border with Armenia and Azerbaijan, authorities said, less than three months after he fled the country in secret during a criminal prosecution he says is politically motivated.
In a statement on May 27, Georgia's State Security Service said Giorgi Bachiashvili was detained a day earlier after it received what it said was an anonymous tip-off on his whereabouts. It was unclear why he would have been in the border area after leaving the country.
The firm of UK-based attorney Robert Amsterdam said Bachiashvili “faces an immediate risk of torture” after what it called his “forcible return” to Georgia, where a Tbilisi court had convicted him of embezzlement and money-laundering sentenced him in absentia to 11 years in prison shortly after he fled.
A lawyer for Bachiashvili said he had been sent to the Rustavi detention center following his arrest.
For over a decade, Bachiashvili had been a close associate of Ivanishvili, the billionaire businessman who served as prime minister in 2012-13 after his Georgian Dream party won elections and is still widely seen as the South Caucasus country’s de facto ruler.
But the two had a falling out and a case against Bachiashvili, the former head of a private equity fund founded by Ivanishvili and former deputy CEO of Georgia's sovereign wealth fund, was launched in 2023 based on a statement from Ivanishvili.
Prosecutors accused Bachiashvili of misappropriating nearly $40 million in cryptocurrency, and he was freed on bail of 2.5 million lari ($912,000) in July 2023. He managed to evade surveillance and fled Georgia in early March of this year.
According to Georgian police, Bachiashvili left Georgia by crossing the border with Armenia in a hiding place he had fashioned between the back seat and the trunk of a dark-colored Toyota Camry.
In an interview published in The Guardian on March 26, Bachiashvili said he had been Ivanishvili’s “right-hand-man” before their falling-out. He asserted that Ivanishvili “will sacrifice the land, any interest for his personal wellbeing and security.”
The statement from Amsterdam & Partners claimed that Bachiashvili “has been the target of an intensifying campaign of political persecution orchestrated by Bidzina Ivanishvili.”
There was no immediate comment from Ivanishvili.
Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, an Ivanishvili ally, thanked the State Security Service "for the successful and proper conduct of the operation" in remarks to journalists on May 27.
He said he could not comment on why Bachiashvili was in the border area.
