Former Georgian president Saakashvili sentenced to additional 4.5 years in jail

A court in Tbilisi has sentenced former president Mikheil Saakashvili to an additional four and a half years behind bars for illegally crossing the border, bringing the pro-Western politician's total sentence to 12.5 years.

Saakashvili says the decision is meant to "intimidate" Georgian people and "send a threatening message" to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- who has demanded that the Ukrainian national since 2019 be transferred to Kyiv.