On 10 February, one of the leaders of European Georgia opposition party and ex-Mayor of Tbilisi Gigi Ugulava was sentenced to three years and two months in prison by Georgian Supreme Court. The charge was for the embezzlement of 48 million GEL from the Tbilisi Municipal Development fund while in office, reported agenda.ge. In February 2018 the Tbilisi Court of Appeals also sentenced Ugulava to one year and three months to prison in the case. However, the verdict was absorbed by Ugulava’s other sentence.
Ugulava and the opposition said that this sentence was “political persecution,” adding that the ruling Georgian Dream party had “crossed the red line.” “If prison is a path to freedom, I am ready to go to prison for the third time,“ said Ugulava. He added that the verdict against him was issued not by the Supreme Court but by personally Bidzina Ivanishvili, the leader of the ruling party Georgian Dream.
Following Ugulava’s arrest, the leader of European Georgia, David Bakradze stated that the opposition parties are going to suspend the dialogue with the ruling Georgia Dream party on the 2020 election. He added that opposition parties were ready to make new offers to the ruling party on the election issue, but now “all doors were closed to it.”
The ruling party officials said that “everyone is equal before law,” excluding any political ground on the sentence.
Two US congressman also expressed their concern over the situation in Georgia, after Ugulavas’s arrest. “Gigi Ugulava, leader of European Georgia, was arrested today and sentenced to 38 months in prison for an old crime he’s already served time over. To say this is disturbing would be an understatement. Using courts as a weapon is NOT democracy,“ tweeted congressman Adam Kinzinger. “I’m disappointed Georgia has chosen to increase its politically motivated abuse of opposition politicians. As I told the Georgian Foreign Minister [David Zalkaliani] last week (Caucasus Watch reported), the collapse of judicial independence & persecution of the opposition is unacceptable behavior,” Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jim Risch has tweeted.
Several charges, mostly related to abuse of authority and embezzlement of state funds, were brought against Ugulava in 2013 and he was sentenced to several - month pretrial detention in 2014 by the Tbilisi City Court. In 2015, he was found guilty and sentenced to nine years in prison. This prison term was commuted to four years and six months. Ugulava left prison in 2017 and shortly after the release, the party Ugulava belonged to, the United National Movement announced its split, with Ugulava and several former leaders of the UNM creating the European Georgia party. Ugulava served as Tbilisi mayor between 2005 and 2013.
