Former Georgian president sentenced to 3 years in jail

By Davit Kachkachishvili

TBILISI (AA) - A Tbilisi court on Friday sentenced former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in absentia to three years in prison for abusing his powers in a murder case of a banker in 2006.

Saakashvili, who was accused of abusing his powers when he was the president in 2004-2013, by trying to cover up the evidence pertaining to the murder of Georgian banker Sandro Girgvliani.

Girgvliani, 28, who headed the foreign departments of United Georgian Bank, was found dead on Jan. 28 in 2006 on the outskirts of the capital Tbilisi, after he was seen arguing in a bar with the high-ranking officials of the interior ministry.

Saakashvili issued pardons for four people, who were convicted of the murder and they were released in 2009 after three years imprisonment.

After serving as president of Georgia for 10 years, Saakashvili was appointed as the governor of Ukraine's southern Odessa region by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in 2015 but he resigned the following year.

He became an outspoken critic of the Ukrainian president and accused him of carrying out corruption.

Saakashvili was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship while in the U.S. earlier this year, rendering him stateless, but in September he crossed into Ukraine from Poland with the help of his supporters.

His Georgian citizenship was revoked when he got Ukrainian nationality in 2015.

In 2014, former Georgian Prime Minister Vano Merabishvili was also sentenced to three years for abusing his powers.