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  • Georgia's top court on Monday sentenced a leading opposition politician to three years and two months in jail for embezzlement, which he condemned as false and politically motivated. The Supreme Court's ruling on Gigi Ugulava, the 44-year-old leader of the European Georgia party, was made at a closed hearing. Ugulava told journalists his conviction was "a personal decision" of the leader of the ruling Georgian Dream party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, an oligarch widely believed to pull the strings in the Caucasus country. The conviction of Ugulava, who was a long-serving mayor of the capital Tbilisi, is likely to further fuel political tensions ahead of parliamentary elections due in October. Ugulava and his lawyer were not allowed to attend the court hearing where the judges issued the guilty verdict. He spoke to journalists while awaiting court bailiffs at the headquarters of another opposition party. Almost all the leading opposition politicians were there to support him. The leader of the Labour Party, Shalva Natelashvili, said the opposition had jointly agreed to start a "campaign of a nationwide civil disobedience and mass protest rallies." Since last summer, Georgia has been gripped by mass protests over the ruling party's failure to deliver on promises of electoral reforms. The government has responded to opposition protests with a violent police crackdown. The increasingly unpopular ruling party is facing mounting criticism from Washington and the European Union over police violence against peaceful protesters and a perceived backsliding on democracy. Critics accuse Ivanishvili of persecuting political opponents, stifling critical media and creating a corrupt political system in which his private interests dominate government decision-making. Nearly all of Georgia's opposition leaders and independent media owners are either serving prison terms or facing criminal prosecution. "Some (politicians) have been serving jail terms for years and many more will have to serve such long sentences," Ivanishvili said in November. From 2014, Ugulava spent three years in prison for economic crimes on charges he also rejected as false and politically motivated. During his tenure as mayor of Tbilisi from 2005 to 2013, the charismatic politician led major infrastructure projects and social reforms that dramatically improved living standards. im/am/ach/bp
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  • Georgia's top court slaps 3-year jail term on opposition leader
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