NEWS

Saakashvili’s Ukrainian lawyer claims he was denied entry to Georgia

The lawyer claims that the flight attendant referred to him as a ‘deported passenger.'

Photo: Evgen Grushovets' Facebook page

Agenda.ge, 27 Oct 2021 - 12:11, Tbilisi,Georgia

Former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili’s Ukrainian lawyer Evgen Grushovets claims he was denied entry to Georgia.

The lawyer says that he was stopped at Tbilisi International Airport and sent back to Ukraine without any explanation.

Grushovets added that the flight attendant referred to him as a ‘deported passenger,’ and he is returning to Kyiv ‘without his passport.’

I experienced Georgian hospitality on a personal level… They took my passport and gave it to the crew commander (as the flight attendant said). I explained that I arrived for Saakashvili, but unfortunately, I am going back to Ukraine, the lawyer wrote on his Facebook page.

Saakashvili, who is currently a citizen of Ukraine, fled Georgia in 2013, a year after his United National Movement (UNM) party lost the parliamentary elections. In 2018, a Georgian court convicted him in absentia on two counts of abuse of power and sentenced him to six years in prison.

What criminal charges are filed against recently arrested ex-president Saakashvili?

The ex-president was arrested in Tbilisi on October 1, after his clandestine return to Georgia.

Saakashvili is currently facing five additional charges, including illegal seizure of property, embezzlement, illegal rally dispersal, and illegal border crossing.

The former president denies all accusations, considers himself a political prisoner, and has been on a hunger strike since his arrest.

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