TBILISI – Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili claims that he is currently in Batumi.
Saakashvili posted video footage presumably recorded in Batumi on social media on Oct. 1.
“I greet you from Batumi and call on all of you to vote in the local elections on Oct. 2. We will certainly win and will celebrate our victory,” he said.
The video, however, is very blurry, making it difficult to say exactly where Saakashvili is now.
The ex-president also wrote on social media on Oct. 1 morning that he has arrived in Georgia, but did not specify his whereabouts. The Georgian Interior Ministry, for its part, told reporters that it has no information about Saakashvili’s presence in Georgia.
Saakashvili earlier said on social media that he planned to arrive in Georgia on a Kyiv-Tbilisi flight late on Oct. 2, when voting in the local elections is over.
The Georgian authorities, in turn, have said that they are awaiting Saakashvili in order to convoy him to prison. The Georgian Prosecutor’s Office charged the former president on several counts of crime. Saakashvili has been convicted on two of them.
