A Georgia court handed further prison sentences to former president Mikhail Saakashvili.
Sakashvili was sentenced 4.5 years behind bars on Monday after illegally crossing the border when he returned from exile in 2021, his lawyer said.
He has already served concurrent conditions for embezzlement and abuse of power during his tenure, bringing his total sentence to more than 12 years.
Sakashvili has always denied cheating and calls his latest sentences “illegal” and “unjust”. Rights groups say his incarceration is politically motivated.
Sakashvili is opposed to the governing George Andream Party, which supports close ties with Russia. As president, he sought to develop close ties with the Western government.
In a video posted on X on Monday from the hospital where he is being held, Sakashvili said:
The former president was sentenced last week at the back of a bar for embezzlement for nine years last week, as he runs alongside the sentence he already served. In 2018 he was tried in his absence and sentenced in two separate trials.
Sakashvili was arrested in 2021 after making a surprising return to Georgia ahead of the country’s local elections by smuggling the country by ferry from Ukraine.
He sought a massive anti-government demonstration, but was quickly arrested by Georgia authorities.
The 57-year-old led Georgia in two terms between 2004 and 2013. Since leaving the country, he has lived for the most part in Ukraine.
He was granted Ukrainian citizenship in 2015 and waived Georgian citizenship when he became governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region.
His citizenship was revoked in 2017 and then again recovered in 2019 by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“this [sentence] Basically sending a message… to President Zelensky, they scare him to show what will happen when you don’t surrender your country… I didn’t surrender Georgia,” Sarkashvili told his video address that he was wearing a black shirt with the words “I’m Ukrainian.”
Zelensky, who appointed Saqashvili to oversee reforms in Ukraine, requested a move to Kiev.
He has previously accused Russia of “killing Sarkashvili” at the hands of Georgian authorities.
The European Union has repeatedly called for immediate release from Saqashvili from prison, expressing concerns about his worsening health.
The European Rights Watchdog Council branded him as a “political prisoner” and Amnesty International calls his treatment “an obvious political revenge.”
