Georgia's ex-PM sentenced to 5 years in prison for abuse of power

A Georgian court on Monday sentenced former Prime Minister Vano Merabishvili to five years in prison for abuse of power and other crimes.

The city court of Kutaisi, where Georgia's new parliament is seated, found Merabishvili guilty of several criminal charges in two separate cases, local media reported. He served as prime minister for less than four months in 2012 under Georgia's then- president, Mikheil Saakashvili, until their United National Movement (UNM) party lost a parliamentary election.

Justice Natia Barbakadze convicted Merabishvili of misspending and bribing voters and of misspending public funds and infringing the inviolability of private properties, the report said.

Defense lawyers said that they would appeal against the ruling which was delivered in the absence of Merabishvili.

The court ruled that the pre-trial detention since May 2013 will count toward the five-year imprisonment.

Merabishvili has been standing trial in two cases since his detention.

One of the criminal charges involves the former prime minister in funneling up to 5.2 million Georgian laris (3.06 million U.S. dollars) of public funds to the pre-election activities of the then ruling UNM party prior to the 2012 legislative polls of the South Caucasus country.

The second concerns a misappropriation of a seaside villa from its private owner to someone else with a public fund of 157,000 laris (92,300 dollars) renovating it in 2009 when Merabishvili was serving as interior minister.

He denies all allegations of wrongdoing.

Merabishvili would also be barred from holding public offices for a period of a year and a half.