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Ex-president claims to be in Georgia in Facebook video

Mikhail Saakashvili served as Georgia's president between January 2004 and November 2013, and he left the country several days before his presidential term expired

Mikhail Saakashvili Nazar Gonchar/Shutterstock/FOTODOM

Mikhail Saakashvili

© Nazar Gonchar/Shutterstock/FOTODOM

TBILISI, October 1. /TASS/. Former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili published a video on his Facebook page on Friday, in which he claims to have arrived in the Georgian city of Batumi.

"This is my Batumi," Saakashvili said. "It was expected to host my Batumi American Technological University that was destroyed. We would have had a vaccine now, and the coronavirus would not have claimed so many lives. I missed the place a lot, my dream has come true today," he added.

The ex-president earlier wrote on Facebook that he had returned to his home country after spending eight years overseas. However, a Georgian Interior Ministry official told TASS that Saakashvili had not crossed the country's border.

The former president said on Monday that he had bought an airline ticket to Tbilisi for the night of October 2 to be in time for local elections. Photos of his booked ticket later emerged on the Internet. The Georgian authorities have repeatedly stated that Saakashvili would be arrested upon arrival.

Saakashvili served as Georgia's president between January 2004 and November 2013. He left the country several days before his presidential term expired in 2013. Right after that, four criminal cases were opened against him, and verdicts have now been announced in two of them. In January 2018, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced Saakashvili in absentia to three years behind bars in the 2006 murder case of United Bank of Georgia staff member Sandro Girgvliani. In June 2018, a court handed the ex-president a six-year prison sentence in the 2005 beating case of parliament member Valery Gelashvili.

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Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili

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