Georgia court hands ex-President Saakashvili further 4.5 years in prison

A Georgian court has sentenced former President Mikheil Saakashvili to four and a half years behind bars for illegally crossing the border.

Monday’s ruling followed on the heels of a nine-year sentence imposed on Saakashvili last Wednesday and raises the already jailed pro-Western politician’s time behind bars to 12 and a half years.

Opposition groups insist that the sentences are politically motivated and that the Georgian Dream government, which is accused of abusing democracy and pulling Georgia back towards Russia, is scared of Saakashvili.

After being sentenced while out of the country to six years for abuse of power, Saakashvili was first jailed when he returned to Georgia in 2021.

Last week, he received nine years for misspending public funds from 2009 to 2012, when he was head of state.

On Monday, he received another four years and six months “for illegally crossing Georgia’s border” when he covertly returned from exile in Ukraine, lawyer Dito Sadzaglishvili told the AFP news agency.

“Taking into account the combination of sentences, Mikheil Saakashvili’s overall prison term is set at 12 years and six months,” said Judge Mikheil Jinjolia.

Saakashvili and opposition groups have denounced his ongoing prosecution as politically motivated.

Following last week’s sentencing, the former president took to social media to accuse the authorities of engineering the verdict to keep him from mounting a political challenge.

“It was clear from the very beginning that the case was purely political,” he wrote on X, accusing the country’s de facto leader Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder of Georgian Dream, of ordering his conviction.

The United National Movement (UNM) party, previously led by Saakashvili, accused Georgian courts of “carrying out the orders of the regime, which uses the judiciary to silence opponents”.

Western concern

A deeply polarising figure, Saakashvili rose to power on a tide of popular acclaim in the 2003 Rose Revolution.

In office, he reoriented Georgia towards the West and embarked on an ambitious public sector reform programme that delivered rapid improvements in the South Caucasus country of 3.7 million.

However, the latter part of his tenure was marked by police brutality and a disastrous 2008 war with Russia.

Reacting to Monday’s verdict, Saakashvili accused Georgia’s “pro-Russian regime” of “cynically punishing” him for “refusing to surrender Georgia” during Russia’s 2008 aggression.

The European Parliament, which has condemned Georgian Dream’s crackdown on ongoing protests over claims of election meddling and policies perceived as a threat to democracy, has called for Saakashvili’s immediate release.

The European Union and the United States have urged Georgia to ensure that Saakashvili is provided with medical treatment and that his rights are protected.

The Council of Europe rights watchdog has branded him a “political prisoner”, while Amnesty International has called his treatment an “apparent political revenge”.