The case of Mikhail Saakashvili. How the ex-president of Georgia spent his budget on luxury and cosmetology

The Tbilisi City Court has found former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili guilty of embezzlement of more than $3.2 million in public funds and sentenced him to nine years in prison. He will serve his sentence until 2030. At the same time, the politician has been under arrest since October 2021. How the former head of Georgia ended up behind bars — in the Izvestia article.

What is Saakashvili accused of?

• Saakashvili was charged with embezzlement of state funds in 2014. This investigation is known in Georgia as the "blazer case." During the presidency, Mikhail Saakashvili used $3.2 million in state funds to purchase jackets and coats, pay for his son's studies, undergo cosmetic procedures (including hair removal and botox injections), rent expensive cars and an airplane, and purchase a wristwatch.

• Teymuraz Janashia, the former head of the Special State Security Service, was also involved in the case. The court sentenced him to a fine of 300,000 lari (about $100,000).

• Saakashvili ironically called the decision of the Tbilisi City Court on his new term as a surprise. He called this sentence almost a life sentence. The politician has pleaded not guilty and believes that the trial is allegedly part of a Russian hybrid war against him.

• The Prosecutor General's Office of Georgia does not plan to appeal the nine-year sentence awarded to Saakashvili. However, the agency will appeal to the Court of Appeal to challenge the fine that was imposed on its former head of security.

• The former head of Georgia has already been in six-year imprisonment since 2021 for corruption and abuse of office. Saakashvili is currently serving his sentence in a Tbilisi hospital. He complains about his health due to a prolonged hunger strike, launched in protest against his arrest after illegally returning to Georgia from Ukraine in a container with dairy products on a ferry.

What other laws did the politician violate?

• Saakashvili was detained in Georgia on October 1, 2021, after he returned from Ukraine. He is being tried in five criminal cases, in two of them the ex-president was sentenced in absentia to six years in prison, in the case of embezzlement — to nine years. According to the current sentences, he will have to serve his sentence until 2030.

• The Tbilisi City Court is currently considering two cases against him: the dispersal of a protest rally on November 7, 2007, and illegal border crossing. The verdict on the second one will be handed down on March 14.

• In February of this year, a commission was set up in the Georgian Parliament to study systemic crimes and assess the Saakashvili regime. She will work for six months and prepare a report, which the Georgian parliament will consider and approve by the first week of the parliamentary session in September. The approved report will be handed over to the prosecutor's office and other authorities for follow-up and punishment of the perpetrators.

• Among the crimes of the Saakashvili regime that the commission will study are the organized system of torture in penitentiary institutions, murders of people, violence, invasion of privacy, corruption and pressure on business, as well as the seizure of mass media from legitimate owners. In addition, she will examine the circumstances of the outbreak of war in South Ossetia in 2008.

What is Saakashvili known for?

• Saakashvili left Georgia for Brussels in 2013, without waiting for the end of his presidential term. After that, four criminal cases were opened against him in the country, in two of them the politician was sentenced in absentia to three and six years in prison. He actively supported Euromaidan in Ukraine and the 2014 coup d'etat. In 2015, he became an adviser to the President of Ukraine (the post was then held by Petro Poroshenko), and later received Ukrainian citizenship and the post of head of the Odessa regional administration, but announced his resignation in 2016. A year later, he created his own party and joined the opposition to the government.

• For two years, Saakashvili was a stateless person: he renounced his Georgian citizenship in order to obtain Ukrainian citizenship, but in 2017, Poroshenko stripped him of his passport. Saakashvili was accused in Ukraine of collaborating with criminal groups and organizing rallies, as well as allegedly receiving about $500,000 from Russia to finance protests aimed at overthrowing the government in Ukraine. The politician was deported to Poland, and from there he went to the Netherlands.

• After Vladimir Zelensky came to power in Ukraine, Saakashvili returned to the country and became the head of the executive committee of the National Council of Reforms. In 2019, Zelensky returned his citizenship. However, in October 2021, Saakashvili secretly arrived in Georgia, but was detained, after which he was charged with illegal border crossing.