Georgian opposition leader jailed amid crackdown

TBILISI: A court in Georgia on Monday sentenced a prominent opposition leader to eight months in prison, in the latest case critics say is part of a mounting crackdown on dissent.Georgia has been in political turmoil since the ruling Georgian Dream party won parliamentary elections last October.Its results were disputed by the opposition and sparked mass protests which only intensified after the government shelved EU membership talks.Demonstrators accuse the ruling party of sliding into authoritarianism and steering the country closer to Moscow -- accusations the government denies.Mamuka Khazaradze, leader of the opposition Lelo party and a staunch government critic, was sentenced by a Tbilisi court to eight months in prison and barred from holding public office for two years.He was convicted of refusing to testify before a parliamentary commission investigating alleged abuses under jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili.Saakashvili has been sentenced to more than a decade in prison on various charges, which rights groups have denounced as politically motivated.Khazaradze, who boycotted the trial, condemned the case as a "political witch hunt," accusing the government of "using its repressive machinery to silence and break the opposition."

"Terror in Georgia: the government is intensifying its repressions," former president and opposition leader Salome Zurabishvili said after the verdict.Khazaradze's jailing comes amid a wave of arrests and prosecutions targeting opposition figures and rights activists. Another Lelo leader, Badri Japaridze, is due in court later Monday.Earlier this month, courts ordered the pre-trial detention of three more opposition leaders on similar charges. They have refused to cooperate with the parliamentary inquiry, denouncing it as illegitimate and a tool to outlaw dissent.Ahead of last year's disputed elections, Georgian Dream announced plan to ban all major opposition parties.