Mikhail Saakashvili faces allegations of illegal crossing of borders and abuse of powers, and his prosecution is described by human rights organizations politically motivated.
On Monday, the Georgian court sentenced the former President Mikhail Saakashvili to four and a half years in prison for illegal border crossing. His overall punishment extended to 12.5 years. This is reported to TASR, according to the AFP report.
Saakashvili was sentenced on Monday to four years and six months for illegal crossing of the Georgian border “while returning from exile in Ukraine. “After taking into account the combination of punishments, the total imprisonment of Mikhail Saakashvili is set for 12 years and six months,” the judge said.
The former president was sentenced in absentia in 2018 to six years in prison for abuse of presidential powers. He started serving his sentence in 2021 after returning from exile. Last week, the court assessed him nine years in prison for the embezzlement of public finances. Human rights organizations are considered politically motivated by the prosecution. Saakashvili spent most of his sentence in the hospital after holding a protest 50-day hunger strike in 2022.
After the end of his presidential mandate in Georgia, Saakashvili went to Ukraine, where he worked as a governor of the Odessa region in 2015-2016. He also won Ukrainian citizenship there. The European Parliament demands Saakashvili’s immediate release, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Greenyy is asking for its repatriation as a citizen of Ukraine.
