Ukraine receives request to extradite Saakashvili

Ukraine has received a formal request from Georgia’s prosecutor general’s office to detain and extradite Mikhail Saakashvili [the former president of Georgia and ex-governor of Southern Odessa], the Ukrainian deputy minister of justice Sergei Petukhov said today, 5 September.

“On 2 August 2014, the panel for crimes of Tbilisi’s city court ruled for Mikhail Saakashvili to be taken into custody. On 4 August 2014, the senior prosecutor of Georgia’s prosecutor general’s office issued an arrest warrant for Mikhail Saakashvili for his failure to appear in court,” Petukhov said.

The Georgian side has offered assurances that the extradition request was by no means motivated politically, that Saakashvili will not be tried for crimes other than those specifically mentioned in the request, and that he will not be handed over to a third country without Ukraine’s consent, Petukhov said.

The extradition request has now been submitted for consideration by the Ukrainian prosecutor general.

-According to the Georgian prosecutor general’s office, Mikhail Saakashvili has been charged with several offences under Georgia’s criminal code: misappropriation and embezzlement of another person’s property; violent abuse of power and misuse of his official position.

-On 26 July, the president of the Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a decree revoking Saakashvili’s Ukrainian citizenship.

-The former governor of Ukraine’s Odessa Oblast has spent the past couple of months in the USA. He went live on Facebook on 17 August saying that he was going back to Ukraine on 10 September. He also said he would enter Ukraine from Poland, via the Krakovets checkpoint in the Lviv Oblast.