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Ex-Georgian president Saakashvili stripped of Ukrainian citizenship

The official reason is Saakashvili "consciously presented untrue information and false documents"
Mikhail Saakashvili Archip Vereshchagin/TASS
Mikhail Saakashvili
© Archip Vereshchagin/TASS

KIEV, July 26. /TASS/. The former governor of the Ukraine’s Odessa Region, Mikhail Saakashvili, has been stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship, as follows from an official statement placed on the website of the state migration service.

"The Ukrainian president has issued a decree to strip him of his citizenship," the statement runs." The official reason is Saakashvili "consciously presented untrue information and false documents."

The migration service said the Saakashvili case had been presented by the Prosecutor-General’s Office, processed by the migration service and handed over to consideration for the citizenship commission under the Ukrainian president.

"Under the constitution the president makes decisions to terminate citizenship on the basis of conclusions made by the commission for citizenship affairs," the migration service said.

Earlier, Saakashvili’s party - Movement of New Forces - said if it was true its leader had been stripped of Ukrainian citizenship, then "this will mean that President Pyotr Poroshenko follows in the footsteps of his predecessor to take unconstitutional actions for the sake of usurping and retaining power at any cost."

Saakashvili received Ukrainian citizenship on the basis of President Poroshenko’s decree on May 30, 2015. On the same day Georgia’s former president was appointed chief of the Odessa Region’s administration. He resigned six months later to establish a political party called the Mikhail Saakashvili Movement of New Forces.