On December 26, 2017, during a counterterrorism operation in the Pankisi Gorge, 19-year-old Temirlan Machalikashvili was fatally shot in the head by a special forces officer. According to his father, the special unit stormed their house at dawn and shot Temirlan while he was asleep in bed. The young man succumbed to his injuries weeks later.

The State Security Service of Georgia (SSSG) claimed that the operation targeted individuals who had assisted Akhmed Chatayev and his group, killed a month earlier in Tbilisi’s Gabriel Salosi Street after a 20-hour siege. To support this claim, the SSSG released a video allegedly linking the suspects to Chatayev’s network.

On December 27, residents of Pankisi gathered to demand an impartial investigation. The Council of Elders convened a meeting and condemned the excessive force used in the operation. Later, security officials presented selected evidence to the elders, who stated that “the materials are too complex to assess and must undergo legal review.”

On April 20, 2018, dozens gathered again in the village of Duisi, outside the Machalikashvili family home, demanding the state acknowledge Temirlan’s innocence. That spring, Temirlan’s father, Malkhaz Machalikashvili, joined another grieving parent, Zaza Saralidze—whose son was also killed—in a joint protest movement in front of the Georgian Parliament titled “Fathers for Truth.” Malkhaz continued to camp there for months, even on his son’s birthday.

In November 2018, demonstrators from Pankisi joined protests in Tbilisi outside the ruling party’s headquarters, calling for accountability for Temirlan’s death and naming then–State Security Service deputy chief Soso Gogashvili as the person responsible for leading the fatal operation. Gogashvili denied the accusation but resigned from his post in August that year.

In late 2018, as the government attempted to remove protest tents from outside Parliament, civil activists, opposition members, and NGOs intervened, forcing the Tbilisi City Hall to reverse its decision. On February 5, 2019, the opposition United National Movement called for the creation of a parliamentary investigative commission into Temirlan’s killing, but the motion failed. The family then launched a petition drive, collecting over 100,000 signatures, and later appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Throughout 2019, Malkhaz Machalikashvili continued his vigil in front of Parliament, sometimes joining broader protests, including demonstrations demanding electoral reform. However, on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2019, city workers dismantled his protest camp and installed children’s attractions on the site. “This tent is where I see Temirlan,” Malkhaz said that night. “I will stay here—this is my right to protest.”

In January 2020, the Georgian Prosecutor’s Office formally closed the investigation, citing “absence of a crime.” The statement claimed that Temirlan had “refused to show his hands and attempted to arm a grenade,” forcing the officer to shoot in “self-defense.”

Malkhaz rejected the claim and continued to demand a parliamentary inquiry. In 2019, the State Security Service even accused him of planning a terrorist act, citing a private conversation with his nephew as evidence. He admitted the conversation but said it was a “figure of speech” expressing anger over state injustice.

In 2022, former SSSG deputy Soso Gogashvili was arrested—not for the Pankisi case, but on unrelated abuse-of-power charges—and was sentenced in 2023 to five years in prison.

Nearly five years after Temirlan’s death, on January 19, 2023, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Georgia had violated Article 2 (right to life) of the European Convention on Human Rights due to its failure to conduct an effective investigation. The Court ordered the Georgian government to pay the Machalikashvili family €10,000 in moral damages and €15,000 in legal costs.