Saakashvili in letter from detention: the charges are false

In a letter from a Rustavi detention facility ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili says all criminal accusations against him are false.

Addressing the Georgian population, Saakashvili says when he ‘left everything in Kyiv’ and arrived in Georgia he was aware that ‘most probably’ he would have been detained.

Mtavari Arkhi TV Director Nika Gvaramia has published Mikheil Saakashvili's letter on Facebook earlier today:

However, he claims all the criminal accusations that have been filed against him in the past, has not been recognized ‘by any other country but Russia’.

But I arrived anyway because I believe in my country and each of you!”, Mikheil Saakashvili addresses the Georgian population.

He further calls on everyone to go to polling stations, cast ballot and ‘protect the results of the referendum together’.

My freedom and most importantly the freedom of Georgia entirely depends on your activeness and willingness to fight in upcoming days”, ex-president says in the letter.

Saakashvili, who is charged with several criminal offences, was arrested yesterday in Tbilisi.

It still remains unclear how the former president crossed the border of Georgia as he posted two videos on October 1 from Georgia’s coastal city of Batumi. 

Georgian Public Defender Nino Lomjaria who has visited Saakashvili in prison said that Saakashvili considers himself a political prisoner and starts a hunger strike.