23:00, 22 November 2018

Court of Appeal upholds six-year term of imprisonment for Mikhail Saakashvili

Mikhail Saakashvili. Photo: REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

The Tbilisi Court of Appeal did not cancel the verdict in absentia to Mikhail Saakashvili, the former President of Georgia, accused of beating MP Valeri Gelashvili.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in late June, in Tbilisi, the court pronounced the verdict to Mikhail Saakashvili in the case on beating MP Valeri Gelashvili in 2005 and sentenced the former Georgian President in absentia to six years of imprisonment.

The court found that on July 14, 2005, fighters of the special operations department and soldiers of the armed special forces beat MP Valeri Gelashvili in accordance with the instructions they got from Mikhail Saakashvili. The MP was beaten after he gave an interview to the newspaper "Rezonansi", in which he had expressed his dissatisfaction with the current president.

Today, the court hearing has taken place in the Tbilisi Court of Appeal. At the trial, the defence of Mikhail Saakashvili requested to cancel the verdict of guilty pronounced against the former Georgian President, the "Georgian Public Broadcaster" reports on its website.

The court found Mikhail Saakashvili guilty of organizing the beating of the MP and upheld the court's sentence to six years of imprisonment, the "Sputnik-Georgia" reports with reference to the release published by the General Prosecutor's Office of Georgia.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on November 22, 2018 at 04:27 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.