TBILISI: A Georgian court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili against a prison sentence that he and his backers see as political retribution by his opponents.
The pro-Western reformist politician, who ruled the Caucasus country from 2004 to 2013, was arrested in 2021 after returning to Georgia from exile in Ukraine in the back of a dairy truck.
Saakashvili, 57, was sentenced in multiple cases to a combined 12 years and six months earlier this year, charged with misuse of public funds and illegally crossing Georgia’s border.
“The Tbilisi court of appeals upheld the verdict,” his lawyer Beka Basilaia told journalists on Tuesday.
The sole appeal had been against a four-and-a-half-year sentence for the illegal border crossing.
Basilaia criticized what he called an “unprecedented” move by the court not to conduct an oral hearing as part of the appeal.
Saakashvili and rights groups have denounced his prosecution as a political move by the ruling Georgian Dream party, which has been accused of democratic backsliding and growing rapprochement with Moscow.
Saakashvili has been held in a civilian hospital since 2022, when he staged a 50-day hunger strike in protest at his detention.
The European Parliament has called for his immediate release.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of “killing” Saakashvili “at the hands of the Georgian authorities.”
Zelensky granted Saakashvili Ukrainian citizenship and named him one of his top advisers in 2019.
Georgia and Russia fought a short war in 2008 — while Saakashvili was president — for control of breakaway Georgian territories.
The European Union and the United States have urged Georgia to ensure 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 “apparent political revenge.”
Georgian authorities have also jailed several former Saakashvili officials, in what rights groups have described as a political witch-hunt.
