Former Georgian president Saakashvili returns home and gets arrested ..
Former President of the Republic of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili made a surprise announcement earlier this week, confirming that he has returned to Georgia after eight years of exile, during which he lived mainly in Ukraine and was still politically active, arriving even to the fore in Ukrainian politics.
On Friday, the government of Georgia issued a "shock" announcement that authorities had arrested Saakashvili, although perhaps entirely predictable given the former president's 2018 absentee conviction following charges of abuse of office. “I want to inform the public that the third president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, has been arrested. He was transferred to a prison, ”Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili informed in a press conference on Friday.
In his previous sentence he had been sentenced to a six-year prison term and had recently been warned that his return to his home country would result in his arrest. Interestingly, the attempt to arrest him at the time was orchestrated by Putin and pro-Russian politicians.
Often described as an "exuberant pro-Western reformer" who ended his second term as president in 2013, he oversaw the disastrous Russo-Georgian war of August 2008, which many observers still attribute to his mistakes and illusion of a Western military support. During his exile in Ukraine, he had actually served briefly as the governor of Odessa, before his dual citizenship was revoked. His return home appears to be a communicative blow, just on the eve of local elections, against the current government, which Saakashvili denounced as a "usurping government".
According to the AFP, his own arrest risks leading to political upheavals, potentially leading to street fighting between rival political groups.
In a video posted on social media on Friday night, Saakashvili claimed to be in Tbilisi and believed he was on the verge of being arrested, calling on supporters of his United National Movement to mobilize for Saturday's elections.
"Go to the polls, vote and (Sunday) we will all celebrate our victory together," he said. "I'm not afraid of anything and you shouldn't be afraid either."
Saakashvili's last video before arrest.
Says there is high chance of his arrest, but he is not afraid of anything and tells people not to be afraid either. Confirms he is in Tbilisi. Says vote tomorrow and lets celebrate the victory on 3rd. pic.twitter.com/B05G2LBuKk
– Andro (@ThisIsAndro) October 1, 2021
In a previous video message, Saakashvili claimed to be in the western city of Batumi and to have risked "his life and freedom" to return to Georgia from Ukraine.
A local media video capturing the moment of his arrest showed a smiling and provocative former president being taken to the Rustavi prison.
A political expert in the region, quoted in Al Jazeera. he rightly described that "It now appears that he has put all his cards on the table and hopes that somehow this return will have an impact on Georgian politics, which is very irritable at the moment."
Meanwhile, Georgian President Salome Zourabishvili has declared that he has no intention of pardoning Saakashvili. So, barring a mass shocking change in Georgian politics, he is likely to stay in prison for a while.
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The article Former Georgian president Saakashvili returns home and gets arrested .. comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/lex-presidente-georgiano-saakashvili-torna-a-casa-e-si-fa-arrestare/ on Sat, 02 Oct 2021 07:40:40 +0000.