Abkhazia court sentences Georgian citizen to prison for espionage

A court in Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia has sentenced Georgian citizen Shalva Khizanishvili to six years and nine months in prison on charges of espionage on behalf of Tbilisi and illegal weapons possession, the region’s separatist authorities said.

Khizanishvili, 39, who worked as a teacher in the village of Shashikvara in Abkhazia’s Gali district, was detained by the region’s State Security Service (SGB) in October 2025. The Gali district is the only part of Abkhazia where ethnic Georgians make up an overwhelming majority of the population, News.Az reports, citing News Georgia.

According to the separatist authorities in Sukhumi, Khizanishvili filmed one of the Russian border posts stationed in the region and received payment from Georgian intelligence services in exchange for the footage.

The SGB said searches of his home uncovered three firearms, ammunition and explosives. It also claimed that Khizanishvili had admitted guilt.

Official Tbilisi and international human rights organisations have consistently rejected such accusations, arguing that ethnic Georgians in territories outside the control of Georgia’s central government are subject to politically motivated persecution.

According to News Georgia, following Khizanishvili’s detention, the breakaway region’s Education Ministry called for the education system to be “cleansed of carriers of a different way of thinking”. At the same time, local media outlets and Telegram channels launched a campaign against Georgian teachers in the Gali district.

The teachers were accused of being accountable to the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia in exile, which operates from Tbilisi.

Khizanishvili’s conviction is the latest in a series of similar cases in recent years.

In January 2025, local resident Kakha Muradov was sentenced to 15 years in prison on treason charges. In May 2023, a de facto court sentenced Georgian citizen Kristine Takalandze to 10 years and six months in prison for alleged espionage.

In March this year, authorities in Sukhumi announced the detention of another Georgian citizen, Emzar Bagishvili, on similar espionage charges, News Georgia reported.

News.Az