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Saakashvili to be able to return to Ukraine after serving prison term — Georgian PM

Now, Saakashvili is strongly requesting to be taken back to Ukraine, Irakly Garibashvili said

Mikhail Saakashvili Georgian Interior Ministry Press Service via AP

Mikhail Saakashvili

© Georgian Interior Ministry Press Service via AP

TBILISI, October 3. /TASS/. Georgia’s ex-President Mikhail Saakashvili, who is a Ukrainian citizen, will be able to return to Kiev only after he serves his entire prison term in Georgia, Georgian Prime Minister Irakly Garibashvili said in an interview with the Imedi television channel.

"We are speaking about a man, who was [Georgia’s] president for nine years. It is a catastrophe and an affront: the man voluntarily renounced our country’s citizenship. If he wants to return to Ukraine, he will be able to do it after he serves his entire prison term, he will be able to go wherever he wants," he said.

"Now, he (Saakashvili - TASS) is strongly requesting to be taken back to Ukraine. He has realized that he is in prison, in a difficult situation. He tells prison officials: ‘Bring me back to Ukraine immediately!’ You see the condition he is in. Why has he come here? Was he so naive to think we are blind here and nothing would follow his arrival?," Garibashvili said.

Saakashvili was detained in Georgia on October 1 after he posted a video on his Facebook account, where he claimed he had arrived in the Georgian port city of Batumi. Later, the prosecutor’s office said that it had opened a criminal case against Saakashvili on charges of illegal state border crossing. The former president was placed in a prison in the city of Rustavi, near Tbilisi.

Saakashvili was Georgia’s president from January 2004 to November 2013 and left the country several days before the expiration of his office term. Immediately after it, four criminal cases were initiated against him and verdicts were pronounced on two of them. Thus, Saakashvili was sentenced in absentia to three years behind bars on charges of the murder of banker Sandro Girgvliani and to six years in jail on charged of the assault and battery of lawmaker Valery Gelashvili.

In the recent time, Saakashvili, who holds a Ukrainian passport, has been living in Ukraine.

Georgia’s ex-President Mikhail Saakashvili will serve his entire prison term, Irakly Garibashvili pledged.

"I declare with full responsibility that Saakashvili will serve his term entirely. As of today, he is sentenced to six years in prison. The verdict was pronounced by the last instance. Even if anyone on the planet asks us to release him, there are no one in the government who would do it," he said in an interview with the Imedi television channel.

He tanked Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili for refusing to pardon Saakashvili.

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