By Lucy Papachristou
TBILISI (Reuters) -Georgian prosecutors launched criminal proceedings against eight leading opposition figures on Thursday, accusing them of advocating for regime change and aiding foreign powers.
Those charged include former President Mikheil Saakashvili and seven other key figures representing Georgia’s three main opposition blocs. Six of the individuals, including Saakashvili, are currently in jail.
The move comes amid growing concerns in the European Union, which Tbilisi aspires to join, and among rights groups about the ruling Georgian Dream party’s crackdown on dissent and abandonment of the pro-Western path it has mostly followed since winning independence from Moscow in 1991.
In a statement, prosecutors charged the eight people with a mixture of charges including sabotage, aiding foreign interests hostile to Georgia and calling for the overthrow of the government.
It accused three politicians in particular of providing information regarding Georgia’s economic and security ties with neighbouring Russia to unspecified foreign governments “in order to create an artificial basis for imposing international sanctions”.
Georgia has declined to impose sanctions on Russia over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The three opposition parties – Ahali-Coalition for Change, the United National Movement and the Strong Georgia bloc – did not immediately comment on the charges.
The prosecutors’ announcement comes a week after the Georgian Dream said it would file a lawsuit at the Constitutional Court to ban the three parties on the grounds they pose “a real threat to the constitutional order”.
(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Gareth Jones)
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