Rati Bregadze, the Minister of Justice of Georgia, on Tuesday told the Georgian Public Broadcaster the Ukrainian Government had not been in communication with their Georgian counterparts to request extradition of the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Bregadze was commenting after the Ukrainian Government claimed that Russia was “killing” Saakashvili, who holds Ukrainian citizenship, “at the hands of the Georgian Government.
The Georgian official said the former official would have had to be found guilty of having broken the law in Ukraine for an extradition request by the Ukrainian authorities to be admissible.
He also said requests by the former official’s representatives for his release on humanitarian grounds had been “denied by every court at every level”, and added Saakashvili was undergoing treatment in a Tbilisi clinic where he was moved from a detention facility in 2022.
Bregadze said the Ministry’s “only interest” regarding Saakashvili and all other prisoners was to ensure their good health.
Saakashvili, who has Ukrainian citizenship and held a public post in the country, was arrested on return to Georgia in October 2021 and is serving a six-year term for abuse of power in a case he had been convicted on. He has three other cases against him pending.