Tbilisi - Georgia's former president Mikheil Saakashvili believes the Georgian prosecutors who are accusing him of abuse of office have no evidence of illegal actions taken by him during his tenure as president of Georgia.
“I think the Georgian administration has left the legal field, but I am still proud of the fact that they have spent so much time looking and the only thing they eventually found was the testimony by Georgian former defense minister Irakly Okruashvili, whom we released due to corruption and false accusations,” Saakashvili said in an interview with Georgian television channels in Warsaw on Thursday evening.
“Where can I find the time to come to Georgia, go to jail and give up everything I am doing now? I have no time for that, and they [the Georgian law enforcement agencies] cannot do that,” Saakashvili said.
Saakashvili said he does not talk about the Georgian government anywhere because he is “ashamed.”
“We will have to bring Georgia back to the path that we have temporarily been forced to leave,” he said.
Saakashvili said he had arrived in Poland on Thursday, Aug. 7, and is having meetings with Polish leaders, adding that he had been to Hungary before this visit, where he had similar meetings. “From Poland, I will go to Ukraine to do very important things,” Saakashvili said.
On Aug. 2, the Tbilisi City Court granted a request made by Georgian prosecutors and arrested Saakashvili, former justice minister Zurab Adeishvili, and former defense minister David Kezerashvili in absentia. The men are charged with abuse of office.
The criminal case involved the dispersal of an opposition rally on Nov. 7, 2007, the pogrom of the television company Imedi, and the seizure of the property of Badri Patarkatsishvili, founder of the television company. Former prime minister Vano Merabishvili and former mayor of Tbilisi Gigi Ugulava are suspects in the case.
On Aug. 5, Saakashvili was charged with organizing an attack on Georgian parliamentarian Valery Gelashvili.
