Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said on Dec. 5 that former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili took some $500,000 from fugitive Ukrainian oligarch Sergiy Kurchenko to organize protest rallies in Kyiv.
Speaking at a briefing in Kyiv, Lutsenko said that the SBU state security service had found evidence that Saakashvili contacted Kurchenko through his representative Severion Dangadze and negotiated for financial support in exchange for defending Kurchenko’s business interests in Ukraine.
Kurchenko, who was a close ally of the ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, fled to Russia in February 2014 along with the former president following the EuroMaidan Revolution.
Lutsenko claimed Kurchenko also has links with the FSB, Russia’s state security service. Both Kurchenko and Yanukovych are now under a criminal investigation in Ukraine.
Saakashvili, who on Dec. 5 was dramatically arrested on a rooftop and then, with the help of his supporters, escaped from a police minivan and marched on parliament, told the Hromadske TV channel that Lutsenko’s accusations were a “total fake.”
Saakashvili earlier told the Kyiv Post that the authorities might try to tarnish his reputation with fabricated information. On Dec. 3 he led thousands in a rally in Kyiv for the impeachment of President Petro Poroshenko.
Lutsenko claimed that all of the Saakashvili’s rallies were financed by “foreign oligarchs.”
He showed a long video with intercepted conversations allegedly between Dangadze and some unknown representative of Kurchenko by the name of Sasha.
Lutsenko also played a short intercepted conversation allegedly between Saakashvili and Kurchenko, in which Kurchenko allegedly asks Saakashvili if he could protect his businesses in Ukraine and Saakashvili suggests they discuss it further.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office and SBU security service late on Dec. 3 arrested Dangadze, who is the head of the Kyiv branch of Saakashvili’s Movement of New Forces. Lutsenko said Dangadze is accused of treason and cooperation with a criminal organization.
Saakashvili has been accused of cooperating with a criminal organization, for which he may face up to five years in jail.
“I think the number of Saakashvili’s supporters, at least of those who are not being paid, will decrease after these revelations,” Lutsenko said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov contributed reporting to this story.
