Kesaria Abramidze. Photo: kesaria_official / Instagram
A court in the Georgian capital Tbilisi sentenced a man convicted of killing a transgender woman to life imprisonment on Wednesday, Echo of the Caucasus, Radio Free Europe’s Georgian outlet, has reported.
Beka Dzhaiani was found guilty of the premeditated and particularly cruel murder of Kesaria Abramidze, a Georgian celebrity and model who announced her transgender identity in 2014 and represented Georgia at the Miss Star International transgender beauty pageant in Barcelona in 2018.
Dzhaiani, whom the media called Abramidze’s partner, killed her in her home in September following an argument after Abramidze posted a photo of the two of them together on social media, according to national broadcaster Pirveli TV. Dzhaiani stabbed Abramidze multiple times before fleeing the scene.
The court took into account that the murder had been motivated by intolerance of the victim’s gender identity, Echo of the Caucasus wrote, adding that Dzhaiani was also found guilty of repeated acts of violence against the victim, perpetrated on the same grounds.
Dzhaiani did not attend the hearing, but sent a letter to be read out in court expressing remorse for what he had done.
The murder occurred at a time of increasing danger for sexual minorities in the country. In September, just one day before Abramidze’s murder, the Georgian parliament passed a package of 19 laws which, according to the ruling Georgian Dream party, were aimed at promoting “family values” and the “protection of minors”, but in actual fact were a set of deeply repressive and homophobic measures aimed at mobilising support from the country’s ultraconservative far right.
