Saakashvili ready to test for drugs amid PM’s allegations

Georgian ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who was arrested in Tbilisi on October 1 ahead of municipal elections, says he is ready to test for drugs amid allegations of the country’s prime minister that he is a drug addict. 

 

Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvili released a letter earlier today in which he said that ‘neither drug addiction, nor the wish to go to prison, pushed Saakashvili to return’. 

 

Garibashvili claimed that Saakashvili aimed to stage a coup. However, he (the ex-president) and the United National Movement (UNM) opposition party planned the ‘operation in a poorly manner as it was expected.’ 

 

Saakashvili says he is ready to test for any drugs in Rustavi No.12 prison, with the presence of media outlets, and challenged Garibashvili to also test for drugs. 

 

The ex-president was arrested a day before Georgian municipal elections. 

 

He said he returned after eight years in political exile to ‘save the country’ from the Georgian Dream leadership and encouraged voters to help the UNM win the municipal elections, which would be a step forward to early parliamentary elections.  

 

Saakashvili was convicted in Georgia in absentia back in 2018 for abuse of authority in two separate cases and was sentenced to six years in prison.  

 

He has already been charged with four other cases which concern illegal take-over of property, embezzlement, illegal rally dispersal and illegally crossing the border.