European Council official Bildt: charges against Saakashvili must be tested in a fair trial

European Council co-chair on foreign relations, former prime and foreign minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, has responded to the recent arrest of Georgia former president Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi and said that a fair court must decide whether charges against Saakashvili are fair or not. 

 

“Saakashvili decided to return (to Georgia) knowing that he was going to be arrested. Political justice is unacceptable in today’s Europe, and any charges against him must be tested in a truly fair trial,” Bildt wrote on his twitter. 

 

Saakashvili was arrested in Tbilisi on October 1, a day before municipal elections in Georgia. 

 

He said that he returned to Georgia ‘to save the country from the Georgian Dream regime,’ and ‘put his life at risk.’ 

 

Saakashvili left Georgia back in 2013 and currently serves as a head of the executive committee of the Ukrainian National Reforms Council as a citizen of Ukraine. 

 

He was convicted in Georgia in absentia back in 2018 in two cases for abuse of authority and have been charged in three other cases which are currently in courts. 

 

The Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office is expected to file a new charge against him later today for illegally crossing the border from Ukraine. 

 

Saakashvili claims he is a political prisoner and all charges against him are unfounded.