Parliament Speaker calls ex-Pres. Saakashvili “only saboteur” as latter warns of Russian “subversive group”
Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Monday responded to Saakashvili’s latest claims on an alleged subversive group. Photo: Shalva Papuashvili’s Facebook
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Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Monday called the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili the “only saboteur” as the latter warned of a Russian “subversive group” operating in the country to “spark unrest”.
In his press comments, the official claimed the “only goal” of Saakashvili’s clandestine return to Georgia from Ukraine in September 2021 after eight years in exile, prior to domestic municipal elections, had been to “spark confrontation and unrest” in the country to regain office.
Saakashvili, a foreign citizen [in reference to the former President’s Ukrainian citizenship] who is being run by special services of a foreign state and was sneaked into Georgia on a [freight] container in 2021 to trigger unrest in the country, has no right to speak about any sabotage”, Papuashvili said.
Having engaged remotely in a Tbilisi City Court trial hearing on Monday of a case of embezzlement of state funds allegedly involving him, Saakashvili claimed an armed “subversive group”, subordinated to the First Main Division of the Russian Army, was present in Georgia with a goal to “spark destabilisation”.
Also calling for a “civil defence hotline”, the former official said the means would be used by citizens to call and provide information about “any anti-Georgian sentiments” from the “100,000 Russians” - who he said had entered Georgia on the backdrop of Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine - to “trace” the alleged group in question.
Shalva Papuashvili, the Georgian Parliament Speaker, on Monday alleged a group of members of the European Parliament was taking “deliberate actions to harm Georgia’s image” in a bid to facilitate an “illegal release” of the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili from detention.
Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili, on Friday, said the European Court of Human Rights ruling, rejecting the imprisoned former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s request to be transferred to Poland for treatment, confirmed that the Government’s action towards him “was appropriate and in accordance with the highest human rights standards”.
Lawyers of Mikheil Saakashvili, the imprisoned former president of Georgia, on Thursday appealed to Tbilisi City Court for granting his release on medical grounds, citing a new report by a domestic rehabilitation centre that pointed to potential “coma and death” for the former official in detention.
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 Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Monday rejected as “classic manipulation” the domestic media reports that criticised Economy Minister Levan Davitashvili’s participation in the Belt and Road Forum, an event hosted in China and also involving the Russian President Vladimir Putin, as a case of the Georgian Government’s “bilateral contact” with the Russian leader.
Kakha Kaladze, the Secretary General of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Friday said “any attempt” of Government overthrow from groups “both inside and outside the country” would “fail”, in reaction to comments by the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili on an alleged presence of a subversive group in the country with the goal.