TBILISI (Reuters) -A leader of one of Georgia’s main opposition groups was sentenced to an additional 1-1/2 years in prison on Wednesday after being found guilty of contempt of court for throwing water on a judge during a hearing earlier this year.
Nika Melia of the Ahali-Coalition for Change party has been in jail since May after he and other key opposition figures refused to appear at a parliamentary inquiry into alleged crimes committed under jailed former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who led Georgia from 2004 to 2012.
Melia, 45, was initially sentenced to eight months, but a Tbilisi court on Wednesday ordered that he serve a further 1-1/2 years after convicting him of contempt of court over the water-throwing incident, the Interpress news agency reported.
Video from the courtroom in May shows Melia, in the dock, splashing water from a plastic bottle towards a judge.
GEORGIA’S TIES WITH EU STRAINED
Once among the most democratic and pro-Western of the successor states to emerge from the Soviet Union, Georgia has become increasingly authoritarian since the start of the war in Ukraine, critics of the ruling Georgian Dream party say.
GD in recent months has cracked down on political critics and street protesters while signalling it will soon file a lawsuit to the Constitutional Court to ban the three main opposition parties – including the Ahali-Coalition for Change – outright, on the purported grounds that they pose “a real threat to the constitutional order”.
Melia faces yet more charges after he and seven other prominent opposition figures were charged in early November with various crimes including plotting to topple the government and aiding foreign powers.
Melia and his party co-founder Nika Gvaramia were both accused of sabotage, which carries two to four years in prison. Their party says it rejects the charges as politically motivated.
Ties with the European Union, which Georgia aspires to join, have come under increasing strain over concerns of democratic backsliding in the South Caucasus nation, with Brussels saying Tbilisi is no longer on track to become a member.
Georgian Dream, which froze EU accession talks last November, maintains it wants to join the bloc while preserving what it calls its traditional Orthodox Christian values.
(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Alison Williams)
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