Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was sentenced to nine years in prison after being found guilty in an embezzlement case, on Wednesday, the 12th of March, citing local media, reports Politico.
The court found Saakashvili guilty of misusing about nine million lari (about 3.2 million US dollars) of state budget funds between 2009 and 2012.
Prosecutors alleged that the funds, which were allocated to the Special State Defence Service, were used for personal expenses for Saakashvili, his close associates, friends and family.
Opposition leader Saakashvili was first charged in absentia with abuse of power in 2014 and has been in detention since October 2021 after returning from self-imposed exile in Ukraine to his homeland, where the government has aligned itself with Russia in recent years.
He denies the charges, saying they are politically motivated. His deteriorating health has been widely reported, and Saakashvili has spent most of his sentence in a prison hospital.
Saakashvili faces a total of five charges, two of which are still pending, including one for illegally crossing the border into Georgia.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that the pro-Russian Georgian authorities had acted correctly in Saakashvili’s case, which it said had been handled in accordance with European standards, thus disproving the ex-president’s claim that his prosecution was politically motivated.
Saakashvili was President of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, when he moved the country closer to the West and clashed with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, who invaded Georgia in 2008. About a fifth of Georgian territory in the disputed territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is occupied by Russian forces and separatist regimes backed by Russia.
The ruling Georgian Dream party initially supported a pro-Western agenda when it came to power in 2012 but changed its foreign policy course after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The country’s application to join the EU in July 2024 was suspended amid warnings of backsliding on human rights.
Former Georgian President Saakashvili sentenced to 9 years in prison
