Man sentenced to 12 years for attack on opposition politician

(Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–Tbilisi City Court on Tuesday sentenced a man to 12 years in jail for shooting an opposition politician last February.

Alexi Petriashvili, then the party secretary of the Free Democrats, was approached by two men on a cemetery in the middle of the day in Tbilisi.

The two strangers  proceeded to beat him, first with a hammer, and then with a baseball bat, the Prosecutor General’s Office wrote in a statement.

According to the description given by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in March, the two also shot him several times.

Levan Mekvabishvili was arrested in Borjomi on March 6, accused of being one of the attackers. The court found him guilty of violating article 117 paragraph 5e of the Criminal Code about intentional damage to health perpetrated by a group, and article 117 paragraph 7b about intentional damage to someone’s health perpetrated by extreme violence.

His accomplice has not yet been identified, and the investigation continues.