A Georgian court Monday sentenced former prime minister Vano Merabishvili to three years in prison for abuse of power in connection with a murder case.
Also charged with fraud in the murder case of a businessman in 2006, when he was interior minister, Merabishvili was banned from taking a high post for two years, Xinhua reported.
The former prime minister, not in court when the guilty verdict was announced, is serving a four-and-a-half-year sentence in prison handed down in separate trials connected to the crackdown on protesters in May 2011.
Merabishvili is also a co-defendant with former president Mikheil Saakashvili in a criminal case about suppressing protests in November 2007 and raiding an opposition television station.
