“Freshly dug grave”: photojournalist Irakli Gedenidze's harrowing account at UNM crime inquiry

At a session of the Georgian Parliament’s Temporary Investigative Commission examining alleged crimes committed by the former United National Movement Government between 2003 and 2012, photojournalist Irakli Gedenidze on Wednesday gave a harrowing testimony, recalling the night he was taken to a cemetery, beaten, and threatened with a firearm.

During his emotional testimony, Gedenidze described being forced to his knees next to a freshly dug grave at Jikia Cemetery. He stated that his hands were still cuffed when masked individuals began to assault him from all sides.

“There was a newly dug grave. They threw me on the ground at the Jikia cemetery. I still had handcuffs on, I was on my knees, and when I looked up, everyone was wearing black masks. They started beating me, demanding to know who I had connections with, and they were hitting me from all directions. My head was down, I couldn't even cover myself with my hands, so I used my elbows to protect my vital organs. Then I fell to the side, and they started kicking me in the legs below the knees. After that, someone hit me in the back of the head”, Gedenidze said.

Gedenidze said one of the masked men, who was demanding that he “say everything”, pulled out a gun, cocked it, and placed it against his head.

“I told him, ‘Be careful, it might go off. You know where I work’. He responded, ‘You don’t work there anymore’, and struck me in the face with the hand holding the gun”, he concluded.

On July 7, 2011, under the Government of then-President Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgian law enforcement arrested four photojournalists on fabricated charges of espionage.

The detainees included Zurab Kurtsikidze of the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA), Giorgi Abdaladze of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Irakli Gedenidze of the Presidential Administration, and his wife, Natia Gedenidze, photo editor of Prime Time newspaper.

Following a change in Government, the case was reinvestigated, and numerous witnesses were reinterviewed.

In 2016, the Prosecutor's Office reopened the so-called “photojournalists’ case”, stating that the espionage charges had been fabricated.

According to the Office, the photographers were targeted for actively covering the violent dispersal of the May 26 protest.

On November 22, 2018, the Court of Appeals acquitted all four photographers of espionage. In 2023, a Tbilisi court ordered the Government to compensate them for moral damages.