Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko and the State Migration Service said late on Oct. 24 that ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili can be deported from Ukraine, which prompted him to move to a tent at the protest camp near the Verkhovna Rada and ask for the Ukrainian people’s protection.
Saakashvili and his supporters see the statements as part of a crackdown on the opposition and the authorities’ reaction to ongoing protests in front of the Verkhovna Rada building.
Lutsenko said that Saakashvili can be extradited or deported because the State Migration Service had refused to grant him political asylum and because he had not disputed the decision in court.
Under Ukrainian law, a person who has applied for political asylum cannot be extradited or deported. Meanwhile, Saakashvili’s lawyers say that Saakashvili, as a permanent stateless resident of Ukraine, cannot be extradited under Ukrainian legislation regardless of the status of his asylum claim.
According to Ukrainian law, a person who had permanently lived in Ukraine before the loss of his or her citizenship is considered a permanent resident.
Moreover, it is not clear how Saakashvili can be legally deported to Georgia, since he is no longer a citizen or permanent resident of that country.
Saakashvili said on Oct. 25 that Lutsenko’s claims about his asylum status and deportation were lies.
He said that the State Migration Service had not sent any documents to him on its refusal to consider his application. Saakashvili also said he had disputed the migration service’s failure to consider the application in court, and that his lawsuit would be heard on Oct. 26.
The State Migration Service said on Oct. 24 in a statement on its site that its Lviv branch had refused to consider Saakashvili’s application for asylum because it was formulated incorrectly and because it was not filed by Saakashvili or his legal representatives.
However, State Migration Service spokesman Serhiy Hunko on Oct. 25 first denied the service’s own statement that it had refused to consider the application, but later claimed that he did not know if it had refused or not.
Saakashvili on Oct. 24 set up his own tent at the protest camp, which was established near the Verkhovna Rada on Oct. 17, and spent the night there. He held a rally at the camp at 7 p.m. on Oct. 25.
He said he had moved there for security reasons to avoid political persecution by the authorities.
“When I came here (from Poland on Sept. 10), I risked everything to protect the Ukrainian people,” Saakashvili said. “But now I’m asking the Ukrainian people to protect me.”
Simultaneously, Lviv Oblast’s Court of Appeal on Oct. 24 upheld a lower court’s decision to fine Saakashvili Hr 3,400 on charges of illegally crossing the Ukrainian border on Sept. 10.
In September judge Yuriy Bilous sentenced Saakashvili to a fine.
The hearing was preceded by the release of audio recordings of alleged conversations in which a prankster pretending to be a top ally of President Petro Poroshenko gave instructions to Bilous and another judge involved in the Saakashvili cases. Bilous denied having spoken to the prankster, while the other judge, Iryna Volosko, indirectly admitted it but denied any wrongdoing.
Saakashvili crossed the border after he was stripped of citizenship by Poroshenko in July in what Saakashvili called a violation of the Constitution, Ukrainian and international law, and due process.
Saakashvili’s lawyer Markiyan Halabala told the Kyiv Post the former Georgian president would soon file a lawsuit against the cancellation of his citizenship. He said Saakashvili had finally received documents on the cancellation of his citizenship from the Ukrainian authorities.
Lutsenko also accused Saakashvili and his Ukrainian and Georgian supporters of plotting a coup d’etat and of being financed from abroad – a reference to protesters who have camped out near the Verkhovna Rada since Oct. 17.
He added that the State Migration Service was planning to deport 20 Georgians who he claimed had obtained their residence permits in Ukraine illegally when Saakashvili was governor of Odesa Oblast. Saakashvili dismissed Lutsenko’s claims as nonsense and part of a political vendetta.
Meanwhile, three associates of Saakashvili have said that that the Interior Ministry’s National Guard had kidnapped, beaten and illegally deported them to Georgia on Oct. 21. The Georgians are David Makishvili, who fought against Russian-separatist troops in the Donbas and trained Ukraine’s National Guard; Saakashvili’s former driver Mikhail Abzianidze; and his former security guard, Georgiy Rubashvili.
National Guard spokesman Vadym Holub told the Kyiv Post that “the National Guard is not involved in issues of deportation,” but refused to explain whether National Guard members were present when the deportation took place and whether a National Guard plane had been used.
State Migration Service spokesman Hunko told the Kyiv Post that the three Georgians had been ordered by the State Migration Service to leave Ukraine voluntarily, and there was no court warrant for their forced deportation by the Ukrainian authorities. Under Ukrainian law, a person can only be deported by force if there is a court warrant for this.
Tzvi Arieli, a former instructor at the National Guard and acquaintance of Makishvili, said on on Oct. 24, citing his sources, that the three Georgians had been kidnapped by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the National Guard, the Border Guard and Ukraerorukh, Ukraine’s air navigation agency.
The SBU denied participation in the event, while the Border Guard and Ukraerorukh did not respond to requests for comment.
Arieli said they had been transported by an An-74 plane on flight UR84170 from Kyiv’s Zhulyany Airport to Tbilisi.
Arieli said that the plane had likely been serviced by a Russian dispatcher, and its transponder was turned off.
Yuriy Kasyanov, a volunteer helping the Ukrainian army, said on Oct. 24 that, according to his sources, the plane had flown over Russian territory with the Kremlin’s permission and had been accompanied by Russian warplanes. Arieli said, however, that the plane likely flew over the Black Sea or Turkey.
Halya Coynash, a member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, said in an op-ed that Ukrainian authorities may have to answer at the European Court of Human Rights for the alleged abduction.
