Ex-president Saakashvili officially charged for illegal border crossing
Mikheil Saakashvili served as the country’s third president from 2004 to 2013 and left Georgia back in 2013 after the Georgian Dream came to power in 2012.
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The third president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, who was detained in Tbilisi on October 1, has been officially charged for the illegal crossing of the state border earlier today.
Six other criminal charges are filed against Saakashvili who has been convicted to six years of imprisonment in two cases while four other criminal cases are still being heard in Tbilisi City Court.
A total of four people, including a citizen of Ukraine, have been detained for supporting Saakashvili's illegal activities. Photo: IPN
Based on the interior ministry investigation, Saakashvili arrived in Georgia late on September 28 on a vessel Vilnius, which entered the Poti port from Ukraine.
Saakashvili was reportedly hiding in a semi-trailer truck loaded with milk products. He illegally crossed the state border of Georgia, bypassing the customs control.
Detained a day before the October 2 municipal elections, Saakashvili remains on a hunger strike at No. 12 penitentiary facility in Rustavi.
Day 20 of a hunger strike. #freesaakashvili
— Mikheil Saakashvili (@SaakashviliM) October 20, 2021
His lawyer Beka Basilaia told journalists that Saakashvili’s return to Georgia was ‘heroic’ as he chose ‘the most difficult way’ to return.
Ruling Georgian Dream party chair Irakli Kobakhidze said Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) party will ‘be eventually disappear’ in three years as there will not be any elections until 2024.
The UNM will not thus have a lever to cause polarisation and destruction”, he said.
Kobakhizde also said that Saakashvili will have to spend at least six years in prison, leading the country to eventual peace.
Former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been on hunger strike since his arrest in Tbilisi on October 1, says that he is ready to take medicines to ‘maintain the strength to think and act’, but vows that he will not suspend his hunger strike.
The United National Movement (UNM) opposition party and their supporters are now rallying at Rustavi No.12 prison to express support for the currently detained third president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili.
Overall six criminal charges are filed against recently arrested Georgian ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili who has been convicted to six years of imprisonment in two cases while four other criminal cases are still being heard in Tbilisi City Court.
Georgia’s former President Mikheil Saakashvili has been detained today, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has announced. "Our law enforcement agencies had prior information about his (Saakashvili’s) movement from Ukraine to Georgia and the process was under the control” Garibashvili stated.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili says that the nomination of a shadow cabinet for Tbilisi by United National Movement (UNM) opposition party head and the party’s Tbilisi mayoral candidate, Nika Melia, ‘is another lie and an attempt to mislead the public.’ Melia stated yesterday that after he wins the mayoral run-off on October 30, his deputies will be Lelo opposition party founder Mamuka Khazaradze, Girchi-More Freedom party head Zurab Japaridze, Droa leader Elene Khoshtaria, and opposition member Irakli Abesadze.
The Special Penitentiary Service of Georgia says former president Mikheil Saakashvili has violated the prison regulations by addressing the crowd from a cell earlier today. The penitential service has announced that Saakashvili, who had a bathing day, was isolated in a bathroom when he approached the window of the cell and shouted at the crowd outside the prison.
The Georgian Central Election Commission (CEC) says that 2,088,722 voters have been registered to participate in municipal election run-offs on Saturday, while the number of eligible voters stood at 3,497,345 in the first round of elections on October 2. The total number of voters in Tbilisi, which will also hold run-offs, is 1,002,525.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has urged the public to participate in a large assembly in central Tbilisi on October 27, scheduled by the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party ahead of municipal elections run-offs on Saturday.
The United National Movement (UNM) opposition party has called on the international community and NGOs to ‘take all measures’ to protect former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been on hunger strike for 26 days. The UNM chairman Nika Melia said yesterday that Saakashvili needs to be brought to a multi-profile civil clinic and not to a prison hospital as the Georgian Dream government officials had offered.
Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Lyudmyla Denisova, met with the Ambassador of Georgia to Ukraine, Giorgi Zakarashvili, to discuss the issue of tightening the border control procedure for Ukrainian citizens entering Georgia. In her post on Telegram, Denisova wrote that during the meeting with the ambassador she expressed concern over the fact that Ukrainians have experienced entry refusal since October 2021.
The Lelo parliamentary opposition party has offered the government to launch negotiations with the opposition ‘immediately’ to prevent further escalation of the political situation and find a way out of the ‘existing crisis.’