On December 23, 2025, in Tbilisi, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Georgia officially announced the arrest of the former head of the State Security Service (SSS), Grigol Liluashvili, one of the most influential figures within the country’s security establishment in recent years. According to Prosecutor Giorgi Gvarakidze, Liluashvili has been charged with accepting bribes on an especially large scale and with involvement in a broad corruption scheme, which carries a potential sentence of up to 15 years in prison.

The investigation qualifies Liluashvili’s actions as corruption committed by an organized group through prior conspiracy and abuse of official authority, as stipulated in the relevant article of the Georgian Criminal Code. The former SSS chief was detained as part of a joint operation by the Prosecutor’s Office and the State Security Service itself, underscoring the scale and complexity of the ongoing investigation.

According to the case materials, the episodes involving Liluashvili include the receipt of more than one million US dollars from a foreign investor in exchange for lobbying interests in the energy sector, extortion of over 1.5 million lari from a local businessman for assistance in gasification tenders, as well as the acceptance of substantial sums in return for providing protection to so-called fraudulent “call centers”. Some of these centers, investigators claim, operated between 2021 and 2023 and used their proceeds to finance opposition media while remaining under the protection of a high-ranking official. Another episode is linked to patronage of officials involved in corrupt procurement schemes in the sphere of childcare institutions in Tbilisi.

After his detention, Liluashvili was taken to the Prosecutor’s Office, where he was formally charged. At a hearing of the Tbilisi City Court, a preventive measure of pre-trial detention was imposed. Lawyers for the former official have stated that they intend to challenge the evidence, but the criminal proceedings already involve hundreds of investigative actions, including witness interrogations and the seizure of physical evidence.

The case has triggered a wide public response not only in Georgia. Analysts and international media outlets associate the arrest with a broader trend in the country’s law-enforcement system, as authorities intensify investigations into high-ranking figures who were previously considered part of the ruling elite. Liluashvili headed the State Security Service from 2019 until April 2025 and for a long time was regarded as a key figure in the vertical power structure, wielding significant influence over domestic politics and security.

Political reactions to the arrest have also followed. Georgia’s fifth president, Salome Zurabishvili, sharply criticized the authorities’ actions, calling them “rule through fear”, reflecting deep political divisions over anti-corruption initiatives and the fate of former senior officials.

The Liluashvili case is expected to develop over the coming months, and its outcome may become a landmark event for Georgia’s political and legal system, defining the boundaries of accountability for the elite and law-enforcement practices in the country.

#GEORGIA

24.12.2025 09:13