Nika Melia was found guilty of insulting a judge

The court in Tbilisi sentenced the leader of the opposition party "Akhali," Nika Melia, to 1.5 years in prison, finding him guilty of insulting a judge. This is already the third guilty verdict handed down to Melia in a year.

As reported by "Caucasian Knot", Nika Melia was sentenced in 2025 to eight and 18 months in prison respectively for two criminal cases - for failing to appear before the investigative commission and for contempt of court. On February 9, it became known that Melia was charged with a new offense - insulting a judge at a session in the Tbilisi City Court on November 10, 2025.

The Tbilisi City Court on August 6 issued a guilty verdict against the leader of the opposition party "Akhali," Nika Melia, in the case of insulting a judge. The court found that on November 10, 2025, the politician insulted Judge Tornike Kochkian, who was considering his administrative case.

The court sentenced Melia to one year and six months of imprisonment; however, this punishment will not lead to an increase in his prison term. "Since Melia is already in prison due to two other sentences, the court applied the principle of absorption of punishments, and the actual duration of his imprisonment will not change," notes the news agency "News Georgia."

Melia is also charged under the article on sabotage, which provides for two to four years of imprisonment. Eight opposition members are involved in this case, including Melia and the third president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili. They are accused of organizing protests after the 2024 elections, hostile activities against Georgia, and calls for the overthrow of the government. In February, the sabotage case was transferred to court.

The previous case of contempt of court, for which Melia received a sentence, concerns an incident on May 30, 2025 - on that day, the Tbilisi City Court changed the measure of restraint for Nika Melia to arrest, as he did not post bail in the case of disobedience to the parliamentary investigative commission. The opposition member indicated that he was detained and deprived of the opportunity to post bail. Judge Irakli Shvangiradze refused to consider the circumstances of the detention, explaining that this case was not assigned to him. In response, Melia splashed water towards the judge and called him a "slave." In November, Melia was sentenced to one year and six months in prison.