Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been sentenced to a total of 6 years in prison in 2018 for beating opposition MP Valeri Gelashvili in 2005 and abusing his pardon power in a murder case, was sentenced to 9 more years for embezzlement in the Tbilisi City Court trial.

Saakashvili argued on social media that the money he allegedly misappropriated was “official expenses of the presidential office” and described the verdict as “political persecution.”

There are also two separate ongoing trials against Saakashvili for illegally entering Georgia in 2021 and for dispersing an opposition rally in 2007 and seizing the assets of Badri Patarkachisvili, the founder of the television channel Imedi.