Georgia frees jailed opposition leader after EU posts bail
TBILISI: Georgia on Monday released jailed opposition leader Nika Melia on bail posted by the European Union, in a move expected to defuse a political crisis in the Caucasus country.
The country in Europe’s extreme southeast has been gripped by crisis since last October’s parliamentary polls, which the opposition denounced as rigged.
The release of Melia — the chairman of Georgia’s main opposition force, the United National Movement (UNM) — was part of an agreement the ruling Georgian Dream party and opposition leaders signed last month to end the crisis, under mediation from European Council President Charles Michel.
Waving Georgian and EU flags, hundreds of supporters greeted Melia as he left a penitentiary facility in the city of Rustavi, some 25 kilometres southeast of the capital Tbilisi.
“I want to wish liberation for all the political prisoners in Georgia’’, Melia told the crowd.
“We are facing a ruthless opponent’’, he said, referring to the ruling party. “Unfortunately, I am not the last political prisoner in Georgia.”
Melia’s lawyer Dito Sadzaglishvili said earlier on Monday that Melia’s release had been ordered by the Tbilisi city court after the EU agreed to pay his bail.
The EU had on Saturday posted bail worth $11,600 to allow for Melia’s release, describing it as “an important step taken to end the political crisis in Georgia”.
Melia, 41, was arrested in February in a violent police raid on his party headquarters, sparking mass protests. His arrest followed a court order to place him in pretrial detention after he refused to pay an increased bail fee ahead of hearings in a case related to antigovernment demonstrations in 2019. He has denounced the case as politically motivated. Thenprime minister Giorgi Gakharia resigned over his government’s plans to detain Melia.
Brussels and led a chorus of
Washington international condemnation of Melia’s detention, as fears mounted in the West over Georgia’s perceived backsliding on commitments to democracy.
Melia had united Georgia’s traditionally fractured opposition ahead of October’s disputed elections, emerging as a respected cross-party leader who developed an unprecedented unified opposition front against Georgian Dream’s rule.
In power since 2012, Georgian Dream narrowly won the October parliamentary elections, with the opposition regularly staging mass protests in the months since to demand a fresh vote. In March, Michel initiated interparty talks that brought the Georgian government and several opposition parties to an agreement in April.