News
A Tbilisi court has sentenced former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to 4 years and 6 months in prison for illegally crossing the country’s border, according to a report by Mtavari TV. With the latest verdict added to last week’s sentence for “embezzlement,” the judge determined that Saakashvili will serve a total of 12 years and 6 months in prison. Under Georgian law, which deducts time-served prior to conviction from the overall sentence, the former president is set to remain in custody until at least April 2034.
Saakashvili, who is currently receiving treatment at Viva Medi hospital, did not participate in the trial — either in person or remotely. His lawyers stated that Saakashvili had made a request to deliver a final statement, but the court denied his petition for undisclosed reasons.
Saakashvili, who was stripped of his Georgian citizenship in 2017 after acquiring a Ukrainian passport, returned to Georgia in October 2021 via unofficial channels and was arrested shortly after his arrival. According to the Georgian Prosecutor’s Office, Saakashvili traveled from Ukraine to the port of Poti on a cargo ship and then hid inside a truck carrying dairy products to enter the country undetected.
On March 12, Saakashvili was convicted of embezzling public funds on a large scale and sentenced to 9 years in prison. Prosecutors alleged that he had spent over 9 million lari (approximately $5 million) from the state budget for personal expenses — including luxury clothing, car rentals, and his son's education.
Before his return to Georgia, Saakashvili had already been convicted in absentia in 2018, receiving:
- 6 years in prison for abuse of power in granting pardons to police officers convicted of murder.
- 3 years in prison for ordering the assault of opposition MP Valeri Gelashvili.
One more case against Saakashvili remains open. It concerns the violent dispersal of an opposition protest on November 7, 2007, at a time when Saakashvili was still in his first term as president of Georgia.