The Kyiv District Administrative Court rejected former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s plea for political asylum on Jan. 3.
The court’s decision could be used by Ukrainian authorities as an excuse to deport or extradite him, the former Odesa Oblast governor said.
Under Ukrainian law, those applying for political asylum cannot be deported or extradited. Saakashvili’s lawyers said that they would appeal the court ruling within a month and that any attempts to extradite or deport him during the appeal stage would be illegal.
Seeking asylum
Saakashvili, the leader of the Movement of New Forces party, was stripped by President Petro Poroshenko of Ukrainian citizenship in July and broke through Ukraine’s border in September. He has applied for political asylum, arguing that the criminal cases against him in his native Georgia are politically motivated. He also believes that the cancellation of his citizenship violates Ukrainian and international laws, Ukraine’s constitution and due process.
In November Ukraine’s State Migration Service rejected Saakashvili’s application for asylum, and he filed a lawsuit against the state body. His lawyers argued on Jan. 3 that the state authorities’ refusal to grant him asylum was illegal.
The lawyers pointed out that Ukrainian authorities had earlier recognized Georgia’s criminal cases against him to be politically motivated. Back in 2014 and 2015 Ukrainian prosecutors rejected the Georgian government’s extradition requests for Saakashvili.
They said the extradition requests sent by Georgia in 2014, 2015 and 2017 were identical, and that is why there are no grounds for assuming that the recent request is not politically motivated.
Moreover, last November the European Court of Human Rights also recognized a criminal case against Saakashvili’s ally and ex-Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili as political, the lawyers added.
The lawyers also said that the State Migration Service had not had any time to analyze the vast amount of materials that they provided because it made its decision within one day – another indicator of what they see as the service’s political motive.
The State Migration Service claimed that the situation in Georgia had changed since 2015 and that there was no risk for Saakashvili to be politically persecuted in his home country.
Even if so, Saakashvili’s lawyers have argued that he cannot be deported or extradited regardless of the asylum status since it is unlawful to deport or extradite permanent stateless residents abiding in Ukraine. He also cannot be extradited or deported under the law because he is under investigation in a criminal case in Ukraine.
Saakashvili says that court decisions against him are serving particular political interests.
“One person (Poroshenko) or all the oligarchs don’t want to see me in Ukraine because I speak the truth,” he said.
The Kyiv District Administrative Court, which considered Saakashvili’s lawsuit, is headed by Pavlo Vovk, an alleged associate of lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky, a top Poroshenko ally who allegedly influences the judiciary. Vovk and Hranovsky, who denies influencing judges, have been filmed meeting in a Kyiv restaurant.
Georgian case
Meanwhile, a Tbilisi court held the final hearing on Jan. 3 in a criminal case against Saakashvili. The court is expected to announce the verdict after Jan. 3.
Saakashvili is accused of abusing his power by pardoning four people convicted in 2006 of murdering Georgian banker Sandro Girgvliani.
He has dismissed the accusations as absurd, arguing that he had every right to pardon them. He also said on Jan. 3 that the decisions to schedule two hearings regarding his case in Ukraine and one in Georgia on the same day were a result of a bargain between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Georgian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Poroshenko had allegedly spoken to Putin about the Saakashvili case on Dec. 29, according to a source at the Presidential Administration, Saakashvili said.
The Presidential Administration did not respond to a request for comment.
In other criminal cases in Georgia, Saakashvili is accused of alleged embezzlement, abuse of power during crackdowns on demonstrators and opposition TV channel Imedi, and an attack on lawmaker Valery Gelashvili. He denies these accusations.
House arrest
The Kyiv Court of Appeal on Jan. 3 also delayed until Jan. 11 the decision on whether Saakashvili will be placed under house arrest in a Ukrainian criminal case.
Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has accused Saakashvili of accepting funding from fugitive oligarch Serhiy Kurchenko, an ally of ousted ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, to finance anti-government demonstrations and plot a coup d’etat.
Saakashvili, who was arrested on Dec. 8, believes that the case is a political vendetta by Poroshenko. The prosecutors’ alleged evidence against Saakashvili was dismissed by independent lawyers as being very weak, and he was released by Kyiv’s Pechersk Court Judge Larysa Tsokol on Dec. 11.
Saakashvili said that, according to his source at the Presidential Administration, Poroshenko had allegedly asked Putin on Dec. 29 to instruct Kurchenko that he should confirm having links to Saakashvili. Previously Kurchenko has denied any such links.
Kyiv Court of Appeal Judge Oleh Prysyazhnyuk, who presided over the Jan. 3 hearing on Saakashvili’s house arrest, upheld a verdict in a criminal case against Lutsenko – then an opposition politician – in 2012. The case has been recognized by Ukrainian and European authorities to be politically motivated.
David Sakvarelidze, a Saakashvili ally, said on Dec. 17 that he believes Lutsenko would use Prysyazhnyuk’s background to pressure him in the Saakashvili case.
In April, Prysyazhnyuk also released police officer Vitaly Honcharenko – who has been charged with murdering EuroMaidan Revolution protesters – from custody, after which the officer fled to Russia.
Prysyazhnyuk and two other judges who are considering Saakashvili’s house arrest, Denys Masenko and Viktor Hlynyany, have been accused of links to Poroshenko ally Hranovsky. They have regularly made decisions in favor of the authorities, including in the hearings against opposition politicians Gennady Korban and Igor Mosiychuk.
In 2016 Hlynyany’s son was appointed to the prosecutor’s office’s department accused of links to Hranovsky, and he was previously responsible for cases heard by the Kyiv Court of Appeal, where his father works. This has prompted accusations of a conflict of interest.
Hlynyany and his family own seven apartments and four houses in Kyiv, according to his asset declaration.
Masenko has been transferred from a court in Russian-occupied Luhansk to Kyiv by Poroshenko, which has been interpreted by critics as a move that guarantees political loyalty.
Saakashvili said that, if the authorities violently crack down on their political opponents instead of peacefully competing with them, a scenario similar to recent Iranian riots could begin.
“The people’s patience is coming to an end,” he said. “The last chance for the corrupt elite to get out of this situation is through a normal political process… Peace in Ukraine is at stake now. Political processes will allow Ukraine to develop peacefully.”
