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Saakashvili plans to appeal against revoking his Ukrainian citizenship

Saakashvili, who had been charged with several crimes in Georgia, was granted Ukrainian citizenship in May 2015
Mikheil Saakashvili AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov
Mikheil Saakashvili
© AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov

KIEV, October 25. /TASS/. Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian President turned Ukrainian opposition figure, has received documents from the Ukrainian presidential administration confirming the decision to strip him of citizenship and is planning to lodge an appeal soon.

"Today or tomorrow I will go to court as we have finally received the documents from the presidential administration on revoking my citizenship, and we will appeal against this," Saakashvili told Ukraine’s NewsOne TV channel.

Saakashvili, who had been charged with several crimes in Georgia, was granted Ukrainian citizenship in May 2015, which resulted in his Georgian citizenship being revoked. Saakashvili served as Ukraine’s Odessa Region Governor, but in November 2016, he stepped down and set up his own party, criticizing the authorities in power.

On July 26, 2017, while Saakashvili was in the United States, Poroshenko stripped him of the Ukrainian citizenship.

On September 10, Saakashvili and his supporters broke through a police cordon at the Shegeni checkpoint on the Polish-Ukrainian border. He later organized protests outside the parliament demanding abolishing lawmakers’ immunity, amending the election law and setting up the anti-corruption court.

After his return to Ukraine, Saakashvili has been demanding the presidential administration provide him documents on stripping him of his citizenship to challenge Poroshenko’s decree in court.

In late September, Saakashvili said he received an answer to his request, in which the administration asked him to wait for another 20 working days.