VLADIKAVKAZ, June 1. /TASS/. Chairwoman of Russia’s Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko has said she considers the attention in Russia to the appointment of Mikheil Saakashvili as governor of the Odessa region to be excessive.
"I think we are paying excessive attention to Mr.Saakashvili. He doesn’t deserve that," Matviyenko told reporters on Monday, answering a question from a TASS correspondent.
According to the senator, the former Georgian president’s actions have been evaluated by the country’s people, where several criminal cases against Saakashvili have been opened. Matviyenko said she was confident it was "pointless" to attach serious importance to this event. "I would say the theater of the absurd continues," she added.
Saakashvili was Georgia’s President from January 2004 to November 2013. He left his country in mid-November 2013, days before the expiration of his presidential term and the inauguration of President Georgy Margvelashvili on November 17, 2013. After his departure from Georgia, Saakashvili stayed in the United States and Ukraine. In recent months, he has been in Kiev working in the rank of the International Reform Council chief. On May 30, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko appointed Saakashvili governor of the Odessa region and granted him Ukrainian citizenship.
Georgian prosecutors brought several charges against Saakashvili in 2014. Thus, he is charged with the crack down on peaceful demonstrators on November 7, 2007; illegal intrusion into the building of the Imedi television channel; illegal acquisition of property belonging to businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili; the organization of an armed attack on deputy Valery Gelashvili in 2005; the cover-up of a crime and falsification of investigation into the 2006 murder of banker Sandro Girgvliani; the misappropriation of state funds in 2009-2012. Saakashvili was put on a police wanted list in Georgia. Later, Georgia’s Prosecutor General’s Office asked Interpol to issue an international warrant for his arrest.