Vazha Abakelia (; 26 October 1948 – 12 July 2019) was a Georgian jurist, judge, prosecutor, academic, and politician who served as the first Prosecutor General of Georgia following the country's restoration of independence in 1991. He held senior judicial and legislative positions during the late Soviet and early post-Soviet periods, including as a Supreme Court judge and member of the Supreme Council, and played a prominent role during the 1991-92 overthrow of President Zviad Gamsakhurdia. After his removal from office during the coup, Abakelia remained active in Georgia's legal system and public life as a district prosecutor, university professor, and outspoken critic of the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili.
Biography Early life and family Vazha Abakelia was born on 26 October 1948 in Gegechkori, then part of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. He later moved to Tbilisi, where he pursued higher education and professional training. He graduated from Tbilisi State University with a degree in law and completed postgraduate studies there in 1978. By profession, he was a lawyer and legal scholar.
Between 1971 and 1979, Abakelia worked as a staff member of Communist Party organizations in Tbilisi.
Abakelia was born into a family with a strong background in public service. His father, Boris Abakelia, was a public figure and jurist who served as Prosecutor of Martvili, a member of the Criminal Law Collegium of the Supreme Court, and Prosecutor of the Stalin District of Tbilisi. His mother, Tamar Jvebenava, was a renown physician who served as head of the Martvili District Health Department. After the family relocated to Tbilisi, she was appointed Chief Physician of the Saburtalo District Polyclinic.
Abakelia was married to Lela Abakelia, a physician. The couple had three children: Boris, Nino, and Tamar. Their daughter Tamar Abakelia pursued a career in ballet and became a soloist with Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre at a young age.
Judicial career From 1980 to 1990, Vazha Abakelia served as a People's Judge in the Nadzaladevi District of Tbilisi. He was appointed to the bench at the age of 27, becoming one of the younger judges in the local judiciary at the time. His appointment followed a family tradition in the legal profession, as his father had held senior judicial and prosecutorial positions within the Soviet legal system.
During his tenure, Abakelia presided over a range of civil and administrative cases. One of the most notable involved Grigoryi Goldstein, a refusenik affiliated with the dissident Georgian Helsinki Group. Goldstein, an engineer who had developed a new type of aerial radar, had been arrested in 1977 and subsequently dismissed from his employment after being barred from leaving the Soviet Union. He later filed a lawsuit against his employer, arguing that his dismissal was unlawful. Acting in his capacity as People's Judge, Abakelia ruled in favor of Goldstein, ordering his reinstatement and the payment of compensation. Contemporary observers described the decision as an unusual instance of a Soviet court ruling that ran counter to the interests of local Communist Party authorities.
The case later attracted public attention within dissident and human rights circles. Goldstein and his brother, Isaiah Goldstein, subsequently became associated with the Georgian national movement and later praised Abakelia's professional conduct. Isaiah Goldstein publicly referred to him as "the man who showed courage." According to contemporaneous accounts, Zviad Gamsakhurdia - then a leading figure of the anti-Soviet Georgian opposition - personally visited Abakelia following the ruling to express his gratitude.
Abakelia has described the court system of the late Soviet era as being "relatively free" from political pressure.
Local Soviet administration
In May 1990, Vazha Abakelia was appointed chair of the executive committee of the Soviet of People's Deputies of Martvili District, in the Samegrelo region of western Georgia. Martvili was his birthplace and, at the time of his appointment, the district was undergoing rapid political and symbolic change amid the weakening of Soviet Communist authority across Soviet Georgia. The town had reverted from its Soviet-era name, Gegechkori, to its historical name, Martvili, in 1989.
Concurrently, Abakelia served as Secretary of the Martvili District Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
As chair of the executive committee, Abakelia emphasized urban and infrastructural development. Municipal initiatives during his term included the addition of sidewalks and landscaping projects in the city center of Martvili, as well as the paving of approximately 70 kilometers of roads across the district, and a major restoration project of the Martvili Monastery.
On 6 October 1990, Abakelia organized a large commemorative event marking 900 years since the bishopric of Giorgi of Chqondidi, a major historical figure associated with Georgia's medieval political and ecclesiastical history. The event was opened by Ilia II, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, and is regarded as one of the early public instances of cooperation between local authorities and the Georgian Orthodox Church following decades of Soviet repression of religious institutions. Researchers and diplomats from 27 countries attended the commemoration, and, at Abakelia's initiative, the Georgian Academy of Sciences organized a scholarly conference through its Institute of History dedicated to Giorgi of Chqondidi. The anniversary has continued to be observed annually on 6 October.
In parallel with cultural and infrastructural initiatives, Abakelia supported agricultural restructuring at the district level. During this period, the Martvili district administration oversaw the establishment of its first agricultural enterprises following the erosion of the collective farm system, facilitated the leasing of state-owned land to individual and cooperative producers, and supported the introduction of new agricultural machinery.
1990 Supreme Soviet election Vazha Abakelia served as a member of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia from 1990 to 1991, following Georgia's first multiparty elections of October 1990. He was elected as a majoritarian representative from the 65th electoral district (Martvili District). Running as the nominee of the Communist Party, Abakelia was the only Communist Party candidate to win a majoritarian district in the 1990 election, defeating Nodar Tsuleiskiri, the candidate of the nationalist Round Table–Free Georgia bloc. During the campaign, he adopted a conciliatory tone aimed at local unity, and downplaying the Communist Party's affiliation to the Soviet Union.
In the Supreme Council, Abakelia served on the Commission on Legislation and Legal Oversight, a key parliamentary body during Georgia's transition away from Soviet rule. His tenure on the commission coincided with sweeping republican reforms that brought an institutional end to the Soviet regime in Georgia, including major constitutional revisions establishing the Republic of Georgia and the first post-Soviet reform of the judiciary. Among the most consequential legislative acts considered during this period was the abolition of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast, a measure that marked a further escalation in tensions between the central government and South Ossetian separatist movements and preceded the outbreak of the South Ossetia conflict.
His parliamentary mandate ended in January 1991, following his appointment to the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court Judge
On 27 December 1990, Vazha Abakelia was elected to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Georgia by the Supreme Council, elected alongside Chief Justice Mindia Ugrekhelidze. Upon his appointment, Abakelia became First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court and Chairman of the Criminal Law Collegium, two of the most senior judicial positions in the newly reconstituted court.
On 29 January 1991, Abakelia was appointed to the newly created Presidium of the Supreme Court, a collective leadership body established to assist in the governance, administration, and supervisory functions of the court during the transitional period. As Chairman of the Criminal Law Collegium, Abakelia presided over judicial panels within that collegium and oversaw staffing and organizational matters related to criminal cases at the high court.
Abakelia's tenure on the Supreme Court coincided with a period of rapid institutional change, as Georgia's judiciary was being reorganized following the collapse of Soviet authority. In public statements, he took a clear stance against capital punishment, calling for the abolition of the death penalty. In interviews, he argued that effective crime prevention depended primarily on swift apprehension, effective investigation, and the integrity of law enforcement, rather than on the severity or length of criminal sentences.
In November 1991, just 11 months after his election to the Supreme Court, Abakelia resigned from the court following his appointment as Prosecutor General.
Prosecutor General On 21 November 1991, Vazha Abakelia was appointed by President Zviad Gamsakhurdia Prosecutor General of Georgia, becoming the first person to be appointed to the office after the restoration of Georgian independence, confirmed by the Supreme Council on 25 November. He succeeded Vakhtang Razmadze, a Soviet-era holdover who had resigned and subsequently aligned himself with the armed opposition to Gamsakhurdia.
Abakelia assumed office during a period of escalating political crisis and inherited a Prosecutor's Office with extensive investigative and supervisory powers, largely unchanged from the Soviet institutional framework. His appointment was criticized by opposition forces, who portrayed it as a continuation of Communist-era governance due to his previous membership in the Communist Party. Nonetheless, upon taking office, Abakelia moved to assert prosecutorial authority over the growing armed challenge to the central government. He summoned district prosecutors from across Georgia to Tbilisi and instructed them to begin gathering evidence against opposition leaders, including Tengiz Kitovani and Tengiz Sigua. He also initiated criminal proceedings against Kitovani and issued an arrest warrant that could not be enforced amid the rising clashes.
During the same period, Abakelia opened a criminal case against Anzor Maisuradze, a close associate of Kitovani, in connection with the firebombing of the Supreme Court building. As unrest intensified, Abakelia met with a delegation from the United States Congress, which raised concerns about the size of Georgia's prison population and the functioning of the justice system during the transition.
As fighting intensified in Tbilisi in late December 1991, Abakelia remained aligned with President Gamsakhurdia. On 28 December, after several days of armed clashes, Gamsakhurdia instructed Abakelia to contact Moscow in an attempt to halt Russian support for the opposition-led Military Council in exchange for Georgia's possible accession to the Commonwealth of Independent States. Abakelia contacted his Russian counterpart, Valentin Stepankov, but the effort failed to produce an agreement.