Tbilisi City Court has dropped several key witnesses in the case against disgraced former Prosecutor General Otar Partskhaladze, who is being tried in absentia for ordering the murder of allegedly mafia-linked businessperson Levan Jangveladze in central Tbilisi in 2025.

According to media reports from the hearing, Tbilisi City Court judge Lela Kalichenko ruled that all evidence presented by the prosecution was admissible. She refused, however, to include four defence witnesses in the list of people to be questioned by Partskhaladze’s lawyers. Their previous testimonies to the defence will therefore not be considered in the proceedings.

The defence had also asked the court to declare inadmissible testimonies given against Partskhaladze by two Russian citizens, Roza Nartsisova and Ilia Mikulsky, at the end of 2025. Their testimonies were included in the case file by the prosecution.

‘The court assessed the evidence and found that there was a basis for transferring the case to the substantive hearing stage. The criminal procedure code directly prohibits the defence from obtaining evidence in a foreign country without following the appropriate procedures. The defence did not follow these procedures, and the court found that it had violated the rules set out in Georgian criminal legislation and international treaties’, prosecutor Levan Vepkhvadze said.

The defence had previously raised concerns about Mikulsky’s testimony during proceedings against other defendants in the same murder case.

According to RFE/RL, the defence also sought to have testimony from Mamuka Pipia considered. Pipia, a politician working in Russia and the foreign secretary of the pro-Russian Solidarity for Peace party, said she knew Jangveladze ‘very well’ and ‘knows for sure’ that he did not have a business dispute with Partskhaladze. Pipia has previously confirmed that she is a friend of Partskhaladze.

Another disputed witness is Irakli Usoyan, the grandson of Aslan Usoyan, a prominent Russian ‘thief-in-law’ known as ‘Grandfather Hassan’, who was killed in Moscow in 2013.

Partskhaladze’s lawyers sought to have Usoyan included among the witnesses to be questioned, but Kalichenko rejected the request.

Usoyan had previously been named in the investigation as the alleged original initiator of Jangveladze’s murder.

‘With this decision, the court violated both the constitution and the imperative provisions of criminal law. We saw an essentially biased decision on the part of the court. We will appeal this decision. The court itself should have been interested in questioning Irakli Usoyan, because for years it has been understood that he was a person who ordered [the murder]’, Partskhaladze’s lawyer Gaga Mosiashvili said on Tuesday.

At a hearing in September 2025, detective Robiko Gogiashvili said that Usoyan had allegedly contracted Partskhaladze and the Mikadze brothers to carry out the killing for $5 million. Gogiashvili said the information was based on intelligence and did not identify his source.

In testimony given to Partskhaladze’s lawyers, Usoyan denied any connection to Jangveladze’s murder.

Partskhaladze, who is a Russian citizen currently residing in Russia, reportedly joined Russia’s Communist Party and is wanted by Georgia.

The court also reviewed the pre-trial detention measure imposed on Partskhaladze in absentia and left it unchanged.

Jangveladze, the brother of well-known Georgian mafia figure Merab Jangveladze, was shot dead on Chavchavadze Avenue in Tbilisi’s Vake district in March 2025.

Gela Udzilauri, who was convicted of carrying out the killing, was sentenced to life in prison in October 2025.

Giorgi Mikadze, his brother Davit Mikadze, and Giorgi Jokhadze were sentenced to life in prison in May 2026 for orchestrating the murder. Mikadze was in detention in Georgia, while the sentences against Davit Mikadze and Jokhadze were delivered in absentia.

Partskhaladze was charged in December 2025 with organising the murder. He has denied the accusations.

Partskhaladze briefly served as Georgia’s Prosecutor General in late 2013. He was sanctioned by the US in 2023 over his alleged ties to Russia’s consulting sector and its ‘malign influence’ on Georgia.