Georgia’s Ex-President Saakashvili on Hunger Strike After Arrestin Kyiv
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Monday, December 11
(KIYV) – The lawyer for Georgia’s Former President Mikheil Saakashvili, Pavel Bogomazov, said his client has gone on a hunger strike after he was detained by Ukraine’s SBU security services on December 8.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yury Lutsenko accused Saakashvili of cooperating with a criminal group linked to Russia and the Moscow-backed former President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.
Saakashvili’s close ally, David Sakvarelidze, said the latter was detained after he’d left a tent camp set up by his supporters and retreated to a friend’s apartment with high temperature.
According to local media reports, Saakashvili was detained in the apartment of the former police chief of Lugansk, Yuri Pokinboroda.
Saakashvili was first detained on December 5 when his Kyiv apartment was raided by police and special forces units. The detention did not last long, as his supporters managed to free Saakashvili from a security car less than an hour after his arrest.
Domestically, the ruling Georgian Dream government has called the situation an internal matter for the Ukrainian government.
The opposition parties, however, have demanded that the Ukrainian government ends its pursuit of Saakashvili
Saakashvili is stateless after automatically losing his Georgian citizenship when he received a Ukrainian passport in 2015. Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko revoked his Ukrainian citizenship in July after the two became political rivals.
