A Georgian court today sentenced Georgian opposition figure and former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been in prison since 2021, to four and a half years in prison, and was also sentenced to nine years in prison last Sunday, his lawyer said.
Saakashvili, 57, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for illegally crossing the Georgian border upon his return from exile in 2021, his lawyer Dito Sadzaglishvili told AFP.
Taking into account his previous convictions in Georgia, Saakashvili should serve a total of 12 and a half years in prison, the judge said.
Saakashvili and human rights NGOs condemn all trials against him as politically motivated.
Saakashvili was already sentenced in 2018, in absentia, to six years in prison for abuse of power.
He was arrested in Georgia in 2021 upon his return from exile to serve that sentence. Saakashvili spent his exile in Ukraine, where he received citizenship and held official positions.
Last week, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced him to nine years in prison, adding three more to his original sentence.
He has been in a hospital in Tbilisi since 2022 after going on a 50-day hunger strike.
The European Parliament called for his immediate release, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded that Saakashvili be transferred to Kiev.
He studied in the US and France and speaks five languages fluently. He came to power after the so-called Rose Revolution, which toppled the regime of President Eduard Shevardnadze in 2003.
Saakashvili reoriented Georgia towards the West and introduced public sector reforms that brought rapid progress in the state administration and economy of the South Caucasian country, which has a population of 3,7 million.
However, the latter part of his term was marked by authoritarianism, police brutality and a disastrous war with Russia in 2008. Saakashvili's United National Movement party lost the 2012 elections to a coalition led by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire who remains Georgia's de facto leader.
Although he is in prison, his party remains the strongest opposition to the current ruling Georgian Dream party.
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