PM Garibashvili: Saakashvili planned to overthrow gov’t, but failed as expected
Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili says that ‘neither drug addiction, nor a wish to go to prison’ pushed Saakashvili to return, who is now ‘desperate’ to leave prison.
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Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili says that the ‘most credible’ account of why ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili returned to Georgia after eight years in political exile was his ‘wish to overthrow the Georgian Dream government.’ However, the ‘operation was as poorly planned as Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM) had run the country while in power.’
Garibashvili stated that Saakashvili has only now realised the failure of his attempts and his psychological condition in No. 12 Rustavi prison is ‘severe,’ and he is asking for immediate release.
The UNM members are in a complicated situation as well as they do not know what to do to make Saakashvili free,” Garibashvili said in a letter released earlier today.
“Saakashvili’s revolutionary plans were destined for failure. If he appeared on Rustaveli Avenue on October 3, the Georgian police would have dispersed a 5,000 men rally very easily and he would be detained without much effort. Saakashvili may not remember that Giorgi Gakharia is no longer the country’s interior minister,” Garibashvili said.
My letter from prison
— Mikheil Saakashvili (@SaakashviliM) October 2, 2021
My dear associates and my Georgian community.
When I left Kyiv and came here, I knew that I would most likely be arrested, with fabricated, false verdicts which were issued by order of Putin. No country in the world except Russia recognizes this sentence... pic.twitter.com/ffA8VPvhz6
He says that the UNM under Saakashvili had been engaged with ‘taking anti-state and irrational steps’ and Saakashvili’s return was also planned in an unreasonable way.'
Saakashvili was also unable to take into account that instead of the weak state institutions back in 2003 (when the UNM overthrew the Eduard Shevardnadze’s government), state institutions are powerful now,” Garibashvili said.
Saakashvili, now a citizen of Ukraine who chairs the Executive Committee of the Ukrainian National Reforms Council, was arrested in a flat in Tbilisi on October 1, ahead of the October 2 municipal elections.
Saakashvili claims that he ‘put his life at risk’ to help his UNM party win the municipal elections and remove the Georgian Dream government from power via snap parliamentary elections.
He was convicted in 2018 in Georgia in absentia for abuse of authority and has also been charged with four other crimes, including the recent ‘illegally crossing the border’ from Ukraine to Georgia.
Georgian former president Mikheil Saakashvili, who was detained in Tbilisi on October 1 ahead of municipal elections in the country says he is ‘deeply touched’ by the support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani has stated earlier today that former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ‘possibly’ violated the Ukrainian legislature by crossing its border illegally. Zalkaliani noted that before Saakashvili became a Ukrainian citizen ‘he was the president and a citizen of Georgia and has been charged in accordance with Georgian legislation.’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced at a briefing in Truskavets, Ukraine today that he will work to bring Ukrainian citizen and former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, currently detained in Georgia, back to Ukraine using "various means".
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 former President Mikheil Saakashvili allegedly entered Georgia’s Black Sea port city of Poti via Ukrainian private company UkrFerry’s boat Vilnius ‘hidden in a truck,’ the Georgian Public Broadcaster’s (GPB) weekly analytical program New Week reports. The GPB says Saakashvili set foot in Georgia on September 29 at nine p.m. via boat which departed from the trading port of Chernomorsk in the Odessa region.
'Content of video was unexpected, form was completely unacceptable'
Former first lady of Georgia Sandra Roelofs wrote on Facebook that the content of the video published by Ukrainian MP Liza Yasko, in which she and ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili announced the creation of a 'new family', was unexpected for her and the form was 'completely unacceptable'.
Georgian Patriarch Ilia II has requested the country’s third president Mikheil Saakashvili, who is currently serving a prison term in Rustavi Prison No.12, to suspend hunger strike ‘which is not a Christian way of behaviour.’
Ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, who was detained in Tbilisi on October 1, has appealed to the international community, hoping they will not allow his ‘extrajudicial captivity case unnoticed’. In an open letter posted on Facebook, Saakashvili says his arrest was based on two court sentences ‘which no one in the world recognises’ and on an arrest warrant on two pending cases.
The Lelo and European Georgia opposition parties have refused to join a rally planned by the United National Movement (UNM) opposition party in central Tbilisi tomorrow, where demonstrators intend to demand the release of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili from prison.
Opposition MP Salome Samadashvili says former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili should be given the right to appeal the verdict against him as he didn’t attend court hearings.
Police have arrested one more individual in connection with the illegal crossing of the national border by former President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili.
Former deputy interior minister under the United National Movement government Giorgi Lortkipanidze has been charged for helping former president Mikheil Saakashvili cross the border from Ukraine to Georgia illegally at the end of September of this year. The Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office says that Lortkipanidze was aware of Saakashvili’s plans to return to Georgia ahead of October 2 municipal elections, and he offered suggestions about how this could be done.
The Special Penitentiary Service of Georgia stated earlier today that former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili will temporarily stay in Gori Military Hospital.