A court in Georgia on Monday sentenced former prime minister Vano Merabishvili to five and a half years in prison for public funds embezzlement in a case his lawyer denounced as political persecution.
The court found Merabishvili, who headed the government of former pro-Western president Mikheil Saakashvili, guilty of giving fictitious jobs to activists who were involved in his party's losing parliamentary election campaign in 2012.
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