A Tbilisi court on Jan. 5 sentenced former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to three years in prison in absentia on abuse of power charges.
Commenting on the verdict, Saakashvili said that although his extradition or deportation is banned under Ukrainian law, Ukrainian authorities could illegally use the Georgian court decision as an excuse to extradite or deport him.
Ukraine’s Justice Ministry will make a decision on extraditing Saakashvili to Georgia after the Kyiv prosecutor’s office completes an extradition check, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for the Prosecutor General’s Office, said on Jan. 5.
In Georgia, Saakashvili is accused of abusing his power by pardoning four police officers convicted in 2006 of murdering Georgian banker Sandro Girgvliani. In 2008 Saakashvili cut the prison terms of about 170 convicted law enforcement and military officers, including the four convicts in the Girgvliani case. The pardons happened after the Russian invasion of part of Georgia in August 2008.
Saakashvili dismissed the accusations as absurd, arguing that his right to pardon them was not constitutionally limited.
“After (the Georgian authorities) hired the best investigators in the world, they failed to find anything and have to try me on ludicrous charges because there’s a bargain between (Ukrainian President Petro) Poroshenko and (Georgian oligarch Bidzina) Ivanishvili,” he said at a news briefing on Jan. 5. “There’s collusion between the oligarchs of two countries (Georgia and Ukraine) and the Kremlin’s direct interest – collusion by oligarchs and corrupt officials against anti-corruption fighters. I want to tell Poroshenko, Ivanishvili and their friend (Russian dictator Vladimir) Putin that my fight will not stop.”
Saakashvili said that the decisions to schedule two hearings of cases against him, one in Ukraine and one in Georgia on the same day on Jan. 3 were the result of a bargain between Poroshenko, Ivanishvili and Putin.
Saakashvili also said that, according to his source at the Presidential Administration, Poroshenko had allegedly spoken to Putin about the Saakashvili case on Dec. 29. The Presidential Administration did not respond to a request for comment.
He said that Putin had urged Ukrainian authorities to put an end to Saakashvili’s actions during his news conference on Dec. 14.
Saakashvili added that there had been no precedents in Western countries of presidents being convicted for pardoning people.
Saakashvili’s Georgian lawyer Beka Basilaia told the Kyiv Post he believed the prosecutors had failed to present any evidence of the ex-president’s alleged abuse of power.
Saakashvili’s political opponents – pro-Kremlin politician Nino Burzhanadze and ex-Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili – were the main witnesses in the case, which proves its political character, Basilaia said.
The conviction is based on “hearsay” presented by Burzhanadze and Okruashvili that Saakashvili promised to pardon the four suspects, which would not even constitute a crime, he said.
Basilaia also argued that the judge had shown prejudice in favor of the prosecution and insulted the lawyers during the trial.
Moreover, Georgian authorities sped up the case starting in 2017 to help Ukrainian authorities get rid of Saakashvili, Basilaia and Saakashvili said. The former Georgian president said this happened after a meeting between Ivanishvili and Poroshenko in Batumi last July.
Asylum seeker
Meanwhile, Kyiv District Administrative Court rejected Saakashvili’s eariler application for political asylum on Jan. 3 – a decision he said the authorities could also use as an excuse to deport or extradite him.
Under Ukrainian law, those applying for political asylum cannot be deported or extradited. Saakashvili’s lawyers said that they would appeal against the court ruling within a month, and that any attempts to extradite or deport him during the appeal stage would be illegal.
Saakashvili, while he was out of the country in July, was stripped by Poroshenko of Ukrainian citizenship, but he re-entered the country by breaking 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 law, the Constitution and due process.
Ukrainian authorities recognized Georgia’s criminal cases against him to be politically motivated when they rejected its extradition requests for Saakashvili in 2014 and 2015.
Saakashvili’s lawyers 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.
United States authorities have also expressed concerns about the possible political character of the Georgian cases against Saakashvili.
Saakashvili’s lawyers have also argued that he cannot be deported or extradited regardless of the asylum status, since it is unlawful to deport or extradite permanent stateless residents of Ukraine. He also cannot be extradited or deported under the law because he is under investigation in a criminal case in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s law on the legal status of foreigners and stateless persons bans the deportation and extradition of stateless permanent residents. According to this law, Ukrainian citizens who resided in the country before being stripped of citizenship and stayed in Ukraine after being stripped of citizenship are deemed to be permanent stateless residents of Ukraine.
It is legally impossible to deport or extradite a person as long as he is a suspect in a criminal case, and the case would have to be closed and recognized as falsified before such a person can be deported or extradited, independent lawyer Andriy Smyrnov said in December.
House arrest
Also on Jan. 3, the Kyiv Court of Appeal delayed until Jan. 11 hearings on placing Saakashvili under house arrest.
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 Pechersk Court Judge Larysa Tsokol on Dec. 11.
Tsokol ruled on Dec. 11 that Saakashvili’s detention by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), prosecutors and police without a court warrant and any other legal grounds on Dec. 5 was unlawful. Saakashvili, who was freed by hundreds of his supporters on the same day, believes the detention to be a kidnapping.
Saakashvili said that, according to his source at the Presidential Administration, Poroshenko had allegedly asked Putin on Dec. 29 to instruct Kurchenko to claim to have links to Saakashvili. Previously Kurchenko has denied having 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 protesters – from custody, after which the officer fled to Russia.
Examination
In December the SBU’s forensic institute made the conclusion that the voices of Saakashvili and Kurchenko in an alleged recording of their conversation were genuine.
The examination has been lambasted because it was conducted by the SBU’s forensic examination institute, not an independent institution. Since the SBU is investigating the Saakashvili case, this could constitute a conflict of interest, according to critics.
Moreover, the results of the examination do not say whether the fragments of Saakashvili’s voice and Kurchenko’s one were taken from one conversation or separate unrelated ones, which would mean that the conversation did not happen.
Moreover, Saakashvili on Jan. 3 cited the SBU examination as saying that the tape “is not fit for research”, which he said implies that it proves nothing. Saakashvili, who denied having spoken to Kurchenko, and independent lawyers also said that there is no evidence of any crime in the alleged conversation even if it had happened.
According to an assessment made by the Kyiv Independent Forensic Expert Institution, the recordings of alleged conversations between Saakashvili and Kurchenko and between a Saakashvili associate and a Kurchenko associate were manipulated, and there are at least 24 fragments merged with each other.
The alleged conversation between Kurchenko and Saakashvili includes fragments of two different conversations merged with each other, which could imply that Kurchenko did not talk to Saakashvili, according to the institution. Moreover, the lengths of the recordings are not sufficient to determine whether the voices are really those of Kurchenko and Saakashvili, the institution added.
