Giga Bokeria, one of the leaders of European Georgia, said before Nika Melia’s trial, which is underway in the Tbilisi City Court, that imprisonment for Melia will further aggravate the fate of the government in the future.

“If Melia was put in jail in this case, it would be obvious that we were dealing with selective justice. This decision does not change anything. If this catastrophic and scandalous decision is made and Nika Melia is sentenced to imprisonment in order to remove him from the political process, it will further aggravate their fate in the future and we will receive one more political prisoner”, - thinks Bokeria.

Former Prosecutor General of Georgia Zurab Adeishvili has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison in absentia, while MP of the UNM opposition party Nika Melia has been banned from taking public office for two years and three months in the high profile case of Cartu Bank, involving the founder of the ruling Georgian Dream party Bidzina Ivanishvili.