Georgia sentences former premier to 5 1/2 years in jail
Baku, February 17 (AZERTAC). A court in Georgia on Monday sentenced former prime minister Vano Merabishvili to five and a half years in prison for embezzlement in a case his lawyer and allies denounced as political persecution.
The court found Merabishvili, who headed the government of ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, guilty of giving fictitious jobs to activists who were involved in his party's losing parliamentary election campaign in 2012.
Judge Natia Barbakadze also issued a $27,000 fine to Merabishvili's co-defendant, former health minister Zurab Chiaberashvili.
Merabishvili, who has been in pretrial detention since May 2013, had served as secretary general of Saakashvili's United National Movement (UNM) party, which was defeated by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition.
"We will appeal the illegal verdict," Merabishvili's lawyer Otar Kakhidze told AFP, accusing the judge of acting under pressure from the prosecutor's office.
"This is nothing but political persecution aimed at destroying the main opposition party in Georgia," he said.
UNM's foreign secretary and the former security advisor to Saakashvili, Giga Bokeria, said the verdict "destroys political culture in Georgia as political opponents, opposition leaders are being jailed for political reasons."
"It's a very bad day not only for justice, but also for democratic tradition in Georgia," Bokeria told the journalists.
"The current government -- which ordered the verdict -- will pay a high political price."
Dozens of Saakashvili's allies have been placed under investigation for corruption and abuse of office charges since the end of the former president's 10-year stay in power, which included a politically damaging 2008 war with neighbour Russia.
Western officials have expressed concern over any investigations that could be perceived as being politically motivated, but the Georgian Dream government has repeatedly rejected any political motives behind the prosecutions.
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