Tbilisi Court sentences Saakashvili to 9 years in prison

The Tbilisi City Court has sentenced former President Mikheil Saakashvili to nine years in prison on embezzlement charges. This is just one of several charges faced by the former president, some of which are still unresolved.

Judge Badri Kochlamazashvili announced the decision on Wednesday morning, rejecting Saakashvili’s request to postpone the hearing, as the former president stated that, despite his wish, he could not attend the session due to his health condition.

Saakashvili has already been sentenced to six years in prison in another case, of which he has served more than three years. Under the law, the newly announced nine-year sentence has been absorbed by the previous six-year term. As a result, his prison time was extended by three more years, prolonging his incarceration until 2030.

In the latest case, the prosecution accused Saakashvili and Temur Janashia, the head of the Special State Protection Service during his administration, of ‘group embezzlement’ of budget funds. Specifically, the investigation claimed that over ₾9 million ($3,244,000) was misappropriated from the state budget between 2009 and 2013 for Saakashvili’s ‘personal comfort and luxury’.

According to the investigation’s version, in order to conceal the misappropriated funds, Saakashvili created a ‘corrupt scheme’ and instructed the Special State Protection Service to cover expenses that could not be legally financed by the Georgian President’s Administration and the State Provision Agency.

At Wednesday’s hearing, the judge considered the ‘group involvement’ charge as an excessive accusation and dismissed it from the case. As a result, Janashia was not convicted under this article; however, the judge fined him ₾300,000 ($110,000) for abuse of power, stating that he placed the president above the public interest.

The announcement of the decision was met with protest in the courtroom, with one of the attendees calling the judge ‘Bidzina Ivanishvili’s slave’.

Saakashvili himself referred to the decision as an ‘oligarch’s verdict’, referring to Ivanishvili, the billionaire founder of the Georgian Dream party, and stated that it was the current government’s response to the ‘successful state-building’ during his presidency.

‘Thus, the sacrifice for the country, love for the homeland, and decency are punished by Ivanishvili’s mafia clan’, read the post published on his official Facebook page.

This case has often been referred to as the ‘Jackets Case’, as among the ‘luxury’ items cited by the prosecution, which included various goods and services, are seven jackets purchased by the former president in the United Kingdom. According to the investigation, Saakashvili also used budget funds for cosmetic procedures, as well as for the hotel expenses of members of his entourage.

Saakashvili, who was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, denied the accusations. He has considered all the cases initiated against him under Georgian Dream to be politically motivated.

Saakashvili’s ongoing legal and political woes

Shortly after the Georgian Dream came to power and his presidential term ended, Saakashvili left Georgia. He spent several years in Ukraine, where he obtained citizenship and held various political positions, though his career there has been tumultuous.

In 2015, he was appointed as governor of Odesa Oblast by then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The following year he publicly accused Poroshenko of corruption and resigned. In 2017, while living in the US, Saakashvili was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship leaving him stateless.

His citizenship was reinstated under the current President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, who appointed Saakashvili head of the Executive Reforms Committee in 2020.

At the same time, he remained actively involved in Georgian politics and frequently announced his intention to return to the country, which he ultimately did before the local elections in October 2021. Shortly after his arrival, he was arrested.

At the time of his arrival, four different criminal cases had been already initiated against Saakashvili, two of which had already resulted in a verdict in absentia.

One of the cases involved the alleged ordering of an attack on businessperson and opposition MP Valeri Gelashvili in 2005. In 2018, Saakashvili was sentenced to six years in prison for this case.

In the same year, he was sentenced for abuse of official power related to the murder of citizen Sandro Girgvliani. Girgvliani was killed in January 2006 following an alleged argument with then-Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili’s wife, Tako Salakaia. The Tbilisi City Court found Saakashvili guilty of illegally promising to pardon the head of the Constitutional Security Department, Data Akhalaia, as well as ultimately pardoning four law enforcement officers convicted of Girgvliani’s murder.

Currently, two more cases against Saakashvili are still ongoing, including the 2007 crackdown on protests in Tbilisi and the raid on then-opposition-leaning TV channel Imedi, as well as the illegal crossing of the border, which was initiated against Saakashvili in Georgia upon his return in autumn 2021.

Since his arrest in October 2021, Saakashvili has several times gone on hunger strike leading to his transfer to a hospital in Tbilisi, where he remains.

Saakashvili’s imprisonment and his health condition have been a subject of political discussion both in Georgia and abroad. His case is one of the issues in the context of the sharp rhetoric of the Georgian Dream regarding Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, who appointed Saakashvili as head of the Ukrainian Reform Executive Committee in 2020, personally demanded his handing over to Kyiv from the Georgian authorities. In July 2023, he ordered the Georgian ambassador to Ukraine to return to Georgia to consult with his government over that demand, which the ruling party considered an insult.

Last year, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Georgia, one of the issues of which was Saakashvili’s release on ‘humanitarian grounds and to allow him to receive proper medical treatment abroad’.

In May 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rejected Saakashvili’s requests regarding two verdicts issued against him, ruling that there was no reason to doubt the fairness of the criminal charges.

While in prison, Saakashvili has continued his involvement in Georgian politics, including commenting on the 2022-2023 conflict within the ex-ruling United National Movement (UNM) party that he founded. The conflict ended with the party’s former chairman, Nika Melia, leaving the UNM along with his allies. One of the reasons for the conflict was the ‘informal influence’ of officials from Saakashvili's time in the party.

Ahead of the 2024 elections, Saakashvili lobbied for the idea of uniting the opposition against Georgian Dream.

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