Interior ministry releases new details about ex-president Saakashvili’s detention
Investigation into Mikheil Saakashvili’s illegal crossing of the state border is currently underway.
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The Georgian Interior Ministry says the detention of ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, who is charged with several criminal offences, was planned in advance.
Based on the information released by the ministry earlier today, Georgian law enforcers, the State Security Service and the General Prosecutor’s Office carried out a joint operation to detain ex-president Saakashvili.
The operation has been carried out secretly to avoid public confrontation and the possible escalations”, the ministry representative Mamuka Tchelidze said at today’s news briefing.
He said Saakashvili was detained at an apartment in the district of Gldani-Nadzaladevi in Tbilisi ‘in precise and efficient time’. The owner of the apartment where Saakashvili was staying has been also detained for covering the crime.
#Georgia #Tbilisi: The first footage of #Saakashvili's arrest, published by Ministry of Internal Affairs of #Georgia pic.twitter.com/bK2fOyD87x
— agenda.ge (@agenda_ge) October 1, 2021
Investigation into Saakashvili’s illegal crossing of the state border is currently underway.
Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has meanwhile noted that the Georgian law enforcers have opened the door of the apartment where the wanted ex-president was hiding with keys, which ‘says a lot’.
The situation was under the control. We knew much more than they could have imagined. Overall, we did everything to ensure the peaceful ending, chose the moment when Saakashvili was home alone”, Garibashvili told the journalists after casting his ballot in Tbilisi earlier today.
He also thanked his Ukrainian counterpart for ‘fruitful cooperation’ in detention of Saakashvili, who holds Ukrainian citizenship.
Mikheil Saakashvili, who served as Georgia’s president in 2003-2013, is charged with several criminal offences including the violent dispersal of anti-government mass protests on November 7, 2007, raiding of TV channel Imedi by riot police, illegal take-over of the property and other crimes.
In a letter from a Rustavi detention facility ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili said all criminal accusations against him are false. Saakashvili also said that when he ‘left everything in Kyiv’ and arrived in Georgia he was aware that ‘most probably’ he would have been detained.