Parliament Speaker slams Ukrainian MP for interference in internal affairs of Georgia

The Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Monday called on Ukrainian authorities to hand Zurab Adeishvili, the wanted former Prosecutor General and Justice Minister of Georgia, and Gia Lortkipanidze, the wanted former Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, over to Georgia in response to comments by a Ukrainian official on domestic Georgian politics.

Papuashvili made the comment in response to a remark by David Arakhamia, a member of the ruling People's Servant party in the Ukrainian Rada, who on Sunday told the Georgian-based Mtavari Arkhi channel he was “sure” the ruling Georgian Dream party Government would no longer be in power after the 2024 Parliamentary elections.

The remark came after a series of spats between Arakhamia and some other Ukrainian officials on the one hand, and Georgian Government officials on the other, on the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine and accusations of a lack of support from Georgia to Ukraine.

If the representatives of the Ukrainian Government want to win the hearts of the Georgian people, they should start by handing over Zurab Adeishvili and Gia Lortkipanidze to the Georgian people and the country’s justice system”, the Parliament Speaker said.

Papuashvili said Adeishvili’s current work as the Chief Advisor for Reforms to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine was “cynical” given his background in Georgia’s former United National Movement, for which he has been wanted since the change of government in the country in 2012.

He also said Lortkipanidze, who has been charged with crackdown on an opposition rally in Tbilisi in 2011, was the “main actor” in facilitating the former President Mikheil Saakashvili’s clandestine 2021 return to the country, which was followed with the latter’s arrest and imprisonment for cases of abuse of power he had been convicted on in absentia.