David Sakvarelidze, an associate of ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, said on Jan. 25 that the criminal case against him is being sent to trial.
Sakvarelidze, a top official of Saakashvili’s Movement of New Forces party, said he had received the indictment in his case from prosecutors. He faces up to seven years in jail if convicted.
In September Sakvarelidze was charged with illegally transporting Saakashvili across the border during the ex-president’s dramatic breakthrough into Ukraine on Sept. 10. He believes the case to be political persecution by President Petro Poroshenko.
Sakvarelidze is also accused of resisting and obstructing police officers and disrupting the work of a border checkpoint.
He was a deputy prosecutor general of Georgia in 2008 to 2012, when Saakashvili was reforming his native country’s law enforcement system.
Sakvarelidze was appointed a deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine in 2015, launched efforts to clean up the prosecution service, and arrested two top prosecutors on graft charges. However, he was fired in 2016 due to a conflict with then Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who Sakvarelidze says blocked the prosecution reform and helped corrupt prosecutors.
Shokin then opened a case against Sakvarelidze, accusing him of embezzling U.S. funds allocated for prosecution reform. The U.S. government denied the claim, and Shokin’s successor Yuriy Lutsenko had to close the case due to the absence of a crime.
Meanwhile, Olena Shcherban, a lawyer and board member of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, said on Jan. 25 that the criminal case against anti-corruption activist Vitaly Shabunin had also been sent to trial.
Border crossing
Saakashvili denies illegally crossing the border, saying that he had already passed through the Polish checkpoint and was on Ukrainian territory by the time he was carried by hundreds of protesters through the Ukrainian one. He also argues that crossing the border “in cases of extreme necessity” — such as the bomb threat announced by the authorities after his arrival — without undergoing border checks is legal under Ukrainian law.
Saakashvili also believes the authorities’ refusal to let him enter Ukraine was illegal since, as a permanent stateless resident of Ukraine, he had a right to enter it without a visa.
In September Saakashvili was fined Hr 3,400 by a judge accused of loyalty to the authorities for crossing the border. Under Ukrainian law, crossing the border without passing border controls is an administrative offense, not a criminal one.
Saakashvili’s unorthodox border crossing in September came after he was stripped by Poroshenko of citizenship in July. Saakashvili believes the move was unconstitutional, unlawful and politically motivated, while Poroshenko denies the accusations.
Four more Saakashvili supporters have been charged in criminal cases linked to his crossing of the border. One of them, Oleksandr Burtsev, is under arrest, while another suspect is under house arrest. Moreover, Saakashvili’s lawyer Valeria Kolomiyets says several more associates of the ex-president had been illegally detained all over Ukraine after the border crossing.
Other cases
Meanwhile, the Kyiv Court of Appeal will consider on Jan. 26 placing Saakashvili under house arrest in a criminal case. One of Saakashvili’s associates, Severion Dangadze, is under arrest in connection with the same case.
In the case, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has accused Saakashvili and Dangadze of accepting funding from fugitive oligarch Serhiy Kurchenko, an ally of 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 very weak, and he was released by Pechersk Court Judge Larysa Tsokol on Dec. 11.
Saakashvili also says Ukrainian authorities may use a potential rejection of his political asylum application by an appellate court as an excuse to illegally deport or extradite him immediately, although his deportation or extradition is banned by the law.
Saakashvili’s lawyers have argued that their client cannot be legally deported or extradited regardless of his asylum status, since it is unlawful to deport or extradite permanent stateless residents of Ukraine. Saakashvili also cannot be extradited or deported under the law because he is under investigation in a criminal case in Ukraine, they say.
Olha Halabala, a top official of Saakashvili’s party, said in December that 450 activists linked to the ex-president were under investigation in various criminal cases. Recently about 100 Movement of New Forces activists were summoned for “a talk” with SBU officials, who told them that Saakashvili would have to leave Ukraine, and the party activists would be jailed if they do not stop their opposition activities, Halabala added.
In October and November, seven Georgian associates of Saakashvili were deported to Georgia by Ukrainian authorities without court warrants, with the Georgians claiming they had been kidnapped and beaten. Under Ukrainian law, forced deportation is only possible if authorized by a court.
Human Rights Ombudsman Valeria Lutkovska said in November that three of the Georgians had been illegally kidnapped and deported by the National Police without court warrants. The authorities denied accusations of wrongdoing, but failed to present the legal grounds for the deportations.
In November the police also arrested and charged three major participants of the protest tent camp in front of the Verkhovna Rada co-led by Saakashvili.
