On May 21, 2016, a protest titled “Service to the Homeland Is Not a Crime” was held in front of the Chief Prosecutor’s Office to demand the release of five former employees of the Ministry of Defense who had been imprisoned in connection with the so-called “Cables Case.”

The detainees, arrested on May 16 and charged with embezzling state funds, were considered by the Free Democratsparty and its leader, former Defense Minister Irakli Alasania, to be victims of political retribution orchestrated by Bidzina Ivanishvili.

The “Cables Case” originated from a classified 2013 tender. According to the investigation, officials at the Ministry of Defense allegedly misled the state by rejecting a more favorable offer from the state-owned company Delta and instead awarding the contract to Silknet under less favorable and more expensive terms, allegedly wasting more than 4 million GEL. On May 16, the Tbilisi City Court found five former ministry employees guilty and sentenced each to seven years in prison.

At the May 21 protest, organized in front of the Prosecutor’s Office, lawyers, human rights defenders, relatives of the detainees, and members of the Free Democrats took turns addressing the crowd from a small stage. Although members of other political parties, including the United National Movement, joined the rally, only Free Democrats representatives spoke publicly. “We will move to an emergency mode and start collecting petition signatures across all regions of Georgia to appeal to the President to release our innocent citizens,” said Irakli Alasania.

Another protest titled “Unfair Court” took place on June 16, 2016, outside the Court of Appeals, where relatives of the convicted officials and members of the Free Democrats gathered to demand justice and call for the court to act solely in accordance with the rule of law.

In January 2017, President Giorgi Margvelashvili pardoned all five convicted officials. Later, on February 12, 2025, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Georgia had violated the right to a fair trial under the European Convention on Human Rights in the “Cables Case.” The Court stated that “it was unclear what exactly each applicant had done to commit the alleged offenses, and the evidence in the case had been obtained unlawfully.”

A few days later, on February 15, Judge Davit Jugheli, one of those who heard the case, stated in an interview with TV Pirveli that he had been threatened with the kidnapping of his child if he did not deliver a verdict favorable to the ruling Georgian Dream party.