The Tbilisi City Court has sentenced former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to four and a half years in prison for illegally entering the border in 2021, TV Pirveli reports.
The ruling, read out by Judge Mikhail Dzhindzholiya, caused a stir in the courtroom.
Bailiffs had to remove some of Saakashvili's supporters.
The ex-president himself did not take part in the proceeding.
Saakashvili secretly arrived in the Georgian port city of Poti on a ferry from the Ukrainian city of Chernomorsk in October 2021, but was detained and charged with illegal border crossing.
Four criminal investigations were launched into Saakashvili, who is now a Ukrainian citizen, after he left Georgia in 2013.
In two cases, the politician was sentenced to three and six years in prison in absentia.
On March 12, a court found Saakashvili guilty of embezzling over $3.2 million in state funds, sentencing him to nine years behind bars.
The cases concerning the dispersal of an opposition rally on November 7, 2007, and the destruction of the Georgian TV company Imedi’s office are still pending.
In May 2022, the ex-Georgian president was taken to the Viamed private clinic in Tbilisi due to his deteriorating health, where he remains to this day.
