On October 7, the Prosecutor’s Office detained former members of the state commission on determining the Georgia–Azerbaijan border, Iveri Melashvili and Natalia Ilichova, and on October 8 the court ordered pre-trial detention for both of them. Neither of the detainees admitted guilt, and both refused to cooperate with the investigation.

They were charged under Article 308, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of Georgia. Article 308 concerns the violation of Georgia’s territorial integrity, and its first part refers to actions directed toward transferring all or part of Georgia’s territory to a foreign country, or separating part of Georgia’s territory, punishable by ten to fifteen years of imprisonment.

The prosecution claimed that the former members of the border delimitation–demarcation commission used maps while determining the border with Azerbaijan on which Georgia’s borders were incorrectly marked, including the area near the Davit Gareji monastery complex.

In the media, the case became known as the “cartographers’ case.” Part of the public believed that they were innocent. According to them, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not allowing lawyers to access important documentation, which they said represented a new level of immorality “even under Georgian Dream.” For this reason, on November 27, 2020, a protest was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding the cartographers’ case. The protesters demanded the release of detained Iveri Melashvili and Natalia Ilichova.

Protesters believed that “Georgian Dream” detained Melashvili and Ilichova before the parliamentary elections to strengthen its propaganda campaign “Gareji is Georgia.”

The phrase “Gareji is Georgia” appeared on the broadcast of the pro-government TV company “Imedi.” Immediately after the 2020 elections, the slogan disappeared. A large amount of money was spent on promoting manipulative posts on Facebook about the campaign and the cartographers’ case.

In the assessment of the parliamentary elections published on November 4 by NGOs, it stated that “the ruling party did not hesitate to manipulate patriotic feelings of citizens and apparently, for this purpose, initiated the so-called cartographers’ case, which, with high probability, resulted in the detention of two innocent people.”

Natalia Ilichova and Iveri Melashvili spent four months in pre-trial detention and were released on January 28, 2021, after posting bail of 20,000 GEL each. Citizens collected the money within a few hours. On the day of the court hearing, a protest on the cartographers’ case was held in front of Tbilisi City Court, organized by the “Shame Movement.”

Civil activists and leaders of political parties attended the protest. Demonstrators viewed the detained cartographers as political prisoners.

As of September 2025, a final verdict in the case had not yet been issued.