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Saakashvili plans to return to Georgia

Saakashvili, who is currently staying in the United States, did not clarify when exactly he was planning to return
Mikheil Saakashvili ITAR-TASS/Sergei Karpov
Mikheil Saakashvili
© ITAR-TASS/Sergei Karpov

TBILISI, January 12 /TASS/. Georgia’s former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said in a live interview with the Tbilisi-based Rustavi-2 TV channel on Monday that he was planning to return to Georgia.

Saakashvili who is currently staying in the United States did not clarify when exactly he was planning to return.

“The geopolitical situation is changing and the positions of our friends are getting stronger. All that will contribute to my return to Georgia,” the Georgian ex-president said.

On December 29, 2014 Georgia’s Chief Prosecutor Georgy Badashvili said that his agency would soon hand over all the cases linked to Saakashvili to court. In an interview with the Tbilisi-based newspaper “Kviris Palitra”, Badashvili said that in the summer of 2014 Saakashvili had faced charges on four cases.

“Saakashvili is being accused of misappropriation of about 8.8 million Lari (about $4.7 million ); of cracking down on participants in a peaceful rally on November 7, 2007; illegal intrusion into the building of the Imedi TV channel and illegal seizure of property belonging to businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili; organization of an armed attack on deputy Valery Gelashvili; concealment of a crime and falsification of investigation into the 2006 murder of banker Sandro Girgvliani,” Georgia’s chief prosecutor said.

Badashvili noted that Saakashvili had refused to cooperate with investigators and show up at investigative bodies. That is why he had been charged and arrested in absentia.

On August 14, 2014 Georgia issued an arrest warrant for Saakashvili. The Georgian Prosecutor General’s Office simultaneously requested the International Criminal Police Organization, Interpol, to put the ex-president on its wanted list.

Mikhail Saakashvili had left Georgia in November 2013 days before his presidential term officially expired. Over the past 14 months, Saakashvili has been staying mainly in the United States and Ukraine. He turned down the charges against him as “ungrounded.”.