Parliament Speaker: opposition’s positioning of Saakashvili’s release vs EU integration “false dilemma”
The Parliament Speaker also said a “question of a criminal offender cannot be related to the European integration” of the country. Photo: Parliament of Georgia
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Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Tuesday said the opposition United National Movement party had created “false narratives and dilemmas” in positioning the matter of the release of the imprisoned former President and UNM founder Mikheil Saakashvili in the light of the country’s European integration prospects.
Papuashvili said the topic of Saakashvili, whose appeal for release from prison on health grounds was rejected by Tbilisi City Court on Monday, was a “typical propaganda tool” used by UNM to “capture the attention of the citizens” of the country.
The Parliament Speaker also said a “question of a criminal offender cannot be related to the European integration” of the country.
What we are now observing is a false dilemma. Especially over the last two months, we have been the direct target of a lobbyist, propaganda, PR campaign. Georgia is the target of a propaganda PR campaign, the goal of which is to force a release of Mikheil Saakashvili from prison”, the Speaker of the legislative body said.
“We see that false dilemmas are set up - ‘Mikheil Saakashvili or the European Union’ and so on - [because] otherwise, of course, there is no such dilemma. How can a question of a criminal offender be related to the European integration of the country? This is a false dilemma”, he added.
A disclosure of the law firm Akerman with the United States Justice Department on February 3 showed it received $917,177 from the family of Saakashvili for the purpose of lobbying US Government officials to help free the former official.
Saakashvili, who was wanted in Georgia, was arrested in Tbilisi in October 2021, after his clandestine return to the country, and is serving a six-year term for two separate cases of abuse of power while in office, with three other cases involving his term pending.
A disclosure of the law firm Akerman with the United States Justice Department has shown it received $917,177 from the family of the imprisoned former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for the purpose of lobbying US Government officials to help free the former official.
Nino Nadiradze, the head of the Vivamedi clinic in Tbilisi where the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili is undergoing treatment, on Friday said the former official’s “non-adjustment” to life in detention was a major cause of his health problems.
Georgian Justice Minister Rati Bregadze on Wednesday said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statement alleging that the Georgian Government had been torturing the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili was “unfair and insulting”.
Georgian Justice Minister Rati Bregadze on Wednesday called on everyone to stop “politicising” the execution of justice and “supporting” the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili’s “self-harm”.
Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Wednesday highlighted the work of “Parliamentary diplomacy” in his summary of the work of the legislative body on forming foreign ties throughout the past year.
Georgian Justice Minister Rati Bregadze on Sunday said the “wish” of the Georgian Government to ensure “good health” of the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili was “not reciprocated” in the actions of the former official.
Georgia’s Justice Minister Rati Bregadze on Monday rejected reports by several domestic media outlets that said his meeting with ambassadors of the European Union and Sweden earlier during the day had concerned the transfer of the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili abroad on health grounds.
The Polish foreign office on Wednesday said the alleged smuggling of a biological sample of the imprisoned former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili by a Polish medical professional last week had been “unintentional” and “devoid of intentions inconsistent” with the agreement between the Georgian authorities and the group of visiting Polish doctors to facilitate the latter’s inspection of the former official’s health.