First verdict made against Mikheil Saakashvili
First verdict made against Mikheil Saakashvili

The first guilty verdict was made today in Georgia against Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s former president and ex-governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region.

Former President of Georgia was sentenced to 3 years in prison based on amnesty into murder case of 28-year-old Sandro Girgvliani, senior employee of Bank of Georgia found killed in Okrokana settlement, outskirts of Tbilisi, on January 27, 2006. Giorgi Arevadze, Judge of Tbilisi City Court announced the decision earlier this afternoon.

Court trial into the case continued during several years. Saakashvili was charged for abuse of official authorities in November of 2014. Former president was found guilty for the decision made by him on November 24, 2008, over pardoning of those high-ranking officials, who were trialed into Girgvliani’s case.

Three other criminal cases are opened against Saakashvili in Georgia – attack and physical assault on businessman Valery Gelbakhiani, November 7, 2007 case and embezzlement of budgetary funds.

Saakashvili said he had no doubt that the court decision made today had been dictated from official Kiev. Saakashvili said that the Georgian government was afraid of him and his conviction was planned during the visit of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to Tbilisi.

The decision of Tbilisi City Court on conviction of former president Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia gives all legal grounds for his deportation to Georgia, – said Ukrainian MP Igor Mosicuk, a member of the Radical Party. “Saakashvili was sentenced to three years in jail for abuse of power in Georgia. When he was president, he pardoned three people who had been convicted of killing a bank employee. This decision of the court on the conviction of Mikheil Saakashvili in Georgia gives all legal grounds for his deportation to Georgia,” Mosicuk posted on his Facebook page.

The guilty verdict made against Mikheil Saakashvili was described as politically motivated in United National Movement (UNM) Party. Members of European Georgia Party also talk about political persecution. Representatives of the ruling team claimed that the decision was made by the court and this had nothing to do with politics.

Georgia’s President Giorgi Margvelashvili also commented about guilty verdict made with respect to former president. “It is alarming that Chief Prosecutor’s Office used Constitution’s article of pardoning for the bases of persecution,” President Margvelashvili said. According to President, the statements made by Prosecutor’s Office have deepened suspicion that there is an attempt to misinterpret Constitutional rights that creates problems to Constitutional balance.