Saakashvili comments on new embezzlement charges

Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvili believes the "Government’s thirst for revenge and their rush to please their Russian friends” is one reason why he has been slapped with numerous criminal charges.

Saakashvili, whose latest television appearance was on Ukraine TV on August 10, wrote a post on his Facebook page where he spoke about his recent indictments.

"Nothing seems to be able to prevent Georgian Dream leaders from tarnishing the reputation of our country,” he said.

"First they accused me of having stolen billions for myself and could not find the beginning of one Tetri of such billions. Now they are obliged to fabricate proofs of alleged 8 million misspending, most of them being simple basic fakes,” Saakashvili’s post read.

The ex-president believed the authority’s "imagination and physical addiction to prosecution could be funny if they were not in charge of the fate of our beloved Georgia now.”  

"While dumping the brotherly nation of Ukraine in these historic times, they focus their energy and resources in prosecuting and jailing Georgian patriots,” Saakahsvili said.

He was confident "history would judge them and before this the brave Georgian people will.”

Saakashvili, who has already been charged with exceeding official authority on two separate cases, was yesterday charged with embezzling 8,837,000 GEL of state funds by the Chief Prosecutor’s Office.

The Office said the ex-president covered up his spending in an illegal way through this department in April 2009 after the scandalous visit to Tbilisi of masseuse Doctor Dot. She uploaded a video of her Georgian visit online however her visit to the country was not registered officially by the Georgian Border Control.

Furthermore, Prosecutor’s Office officially filed criminal charges against Saakashvili at the end of the July for violent dispersal of anti-governmental mass protests on November 7, 2007, unlawful raiding of Imedi television company by riot police and illegal take-over of property owned by late media tycoon Badri (Arkadi) Patarkatsishvili, as well as organising a vicious attack on opposition MP Valeri Gelashvili nine years ago.

Saakashvili was sentenced in absentia to pre-trial detention by Tbilisi City Court on August 2.