The appellate court significantly softened the sentence for Romeo Mikautadze.

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Former Deputy Minister of Economy of Georgia Romeo Mikautadze agreed to the confiscation of property and the payment of a fine during the consideration of the appeal, which reduced his prison sentence from 10 to three years.

As reported by "Caucasian Knot", in March the court sentenced former Deputy Minister of Economy of Georgia Romeo Mikautadze to 10 years in prison, finding him guilty of abuse of power and money laundering.

Former First Deputy Minister of Economy of Georgia Romeo Mikautadze achieved a reduction of his sentence in the appellate court, reported "News Georgia" on October 23.

The appellate court approved a procedural agreement under which the former official admitted his guilt on all counts, agreed to the confiscation of property and the payment of a fine.

As part of the deal, Mikautadze paid a fine of one million lari and transferred confiscated assets worth over 5.54 million lari to the state. This includes an apartment in Madrid worth 1.88 million lari, a country house in the village of Tserovani near Mtskheta worth 372.7 thousand lari, a 15% stake in the company "Nakhiduri HPP" worth 1.58 million lari, three cars: Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG, Land Rover Range Rover, and Lexus ES250 with a total value of 960 thousand lari, four pairs of wristwatches worth 630.1 thousand lari, gold bars worth 99.5 thousand lari, and coins worth 19.8 thousand lari. Mikautadze also compensated the municipal company "Tbilservice Group" for 114.7 thousand lari.

As a result, Mikautadze's prison sentence was reduced from 10 to three years, and he was also sentenced to two years of probation and banned from working in public service for three years.

It should be noted that the defense pointed out that even before entering public service, Mikautadze had been engaged in entrepreneurship for many years and accumulated "substantial property" whose origin can be justified. Moreover, registering property in the names of third parties is not a crime, especially when it comes to joint family property, the lawyer noted.