Georgia’s Ex-Leader Saakashvili to Spend 12.5 Years in Prison

A Georgian court on Monday sentenced ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili to four and a half years behind bars for illegally crossing the border, bringing the pro-Western politician’s total sentence to 12.5 years.

Saakashvili, 57, was sentenced in absentia in 2018 to six years in prison for abuse of office and, last week, he received a nine-year sentence for misspending public funds from the Caucasus country.

He began serving the term in 2021, when he returned to the country from exile.

On Monday, Saakashvili was sentenced to “four years and six months in prison for illegally crossing Georgia’s border” when he covertly returned from exile in Ukraine, lawyer Dito Sadzaglishvili told AFP.

“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 rights groups have denounced his prosecution as politically motivated.

He is being held in a civilian hospital, where he was transferred in 2022 after staging a 50-day hunger strike to protest over his detention.

The European Parliament has called for his immediate release, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded that Saakashvili, a Ukrainian national since 2019, be transferred to Kyiv.

Zelensky -- who appointed Saakashvili as his top advisor to oversee reforms -- accused Russia of “killing” Saakashvili “at the hands of the Georgian authorities”.

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The European Union and the United States have urged Georgia to ensure that Saakashvili is provided 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.”

- ‘Moscow’s signal to Zelensky’ -

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

In August 2008, Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Georgia after Tbilisi initiated a major military operation against pro-Russian separatists in the breakaway South Ossetia region, who had been shelling Georgian villages.

In a video address on Facebook, Saakashvili appeared wearing a T-shirt with the inscription “I’m Ukrainian.”

He said Monday’s verdict was “Moscow’s signal to Zelensky that he will share my fate if he doesn’t surrender Ukraine.”

Russian officials had previously welcomed Saakashvili’s imprisonment.

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

- Pro-Russian tilt -

The increasingly repressive government of the ruling Georgian Dream party has faced mounting accusations of democratic backsliding and of tilting towards Russia.

It has jailed several former Saakashvili officials since he left office -- in what rights groups have described as a political witch-hunt.

Ailing Saakashvili, who has been hospitalised in Tbilisi since 2022, did not appear at the hearing.

“He has several chronic illnesses, and his health condition periodically worsens,” Zurab Chkhaidze, the director of Vivamed hospital, told journalists last week.

Saakashvili, who spearheaded the bloodless Rose Revolution in 2003 and led the Black Sea nation from 2004-2013, before going into exile, has accused prison guards of mistreatment and doctors have raised serious concerns over his health.

The Rose Revolution, which saw tens of thousands take to the streets against rigged elections and rampant corruption, reshaped Georgia and enabled sweeping political and economic reforms that helped to bring a more than threefold increase in per capita GDP.

But many felt sidelined -- and even oppressed -- during the de-Sovietisation social experiment.

The revolution also had a wider impact on post-Soviet countries such as Ukraine, where the Orange Revolution the following year saw a pro-Western candidate elected as president over a Russia-friendly candidate.

The so-called “colour revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan led to confrontation with the Kremlin, which perceived the popular uprisings as a threat to its influence in what it sees as its backyard.