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Nika Gwaramia at a rally in 2017
Photo: David Mdzinarishvili / REUTERS
The prominent Georgian TV presenter and owner of the pro-opposition channel Mtawari TV, Nika Gvaramia, has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison.
A court in Tbilisi found him guilty of causing financial damage to the broadcaster.
Gvaramia's defense attorney Dito Sadzaglischvili criticized the verdict as politically motivated to the AFP news agency.
"Political repression is in full swing in Georgia," Sadzaglishvili said.
The verdict was unlawful, his client a "political prisoner."
In democratic countries, journalists would not be imprisoned for their "dissenting opinions."
Mtawari TV is the most popular pro-opposition TV station in Georgia.
For years, prominent media representatives in the Caucasus country have accused the governing party, the Georgian Dream, of using the judiciary to take action against freedom of the press.
A jurist by training, Gvaramia was the lawyer for imprisoned ex-president Mikhail Saakashvili, who himself is currently serving a six-year prison sentence after being convicted of abuse of power.
Gvaramia and Saakashvili consider the prison sentences to be politically motivated.
The human rights organization Amnesty International has repeatedly criticized the treatment of Saakashvili in prison and last November described the punishment for the ex-president as "not only selective justice, but obvious political revenge".
Georgia fell in the press freedom ranking
Non-governmental organizations have been warning for some time that freedom of the press in Georgia could be undermined.
In Reporters Without Borders' press freedom rankings, the country fell from 60th to 89th this year.
Georgia's human rights ombudsman Nino Lomjaria and the organization Transparency International said on Sunday that they investigated the Gvaramia case and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
In October 2015, Gwaramia said a government intermediary had threatened to release secretly shot videos about his private life.
The aim was to get him to turn his back on journalism.
Gvaramia held various government posts under Saakashvili from 2007 to 2009, such as Minister of Justice and Minister of Education.
He was also involved in his fight against corruption.
fek/AFP
