December 8, 2017

Saakashvili defiant as police clash with supporters at Kyiv protest camp

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KYIV – Mikheil Saakashvili, the former Georgian president turned Ukrainian opposition leader, has vowed that he will continue to resist arrest after his supporters dramatically freed him from custody in Kyiv.

Facing a deadline to turn himself in to the authorities later in the day, Mr. Saakashvili told supporters at a protest camp near parliament early on December 6 that he would not comply.

“I will not show up at the pseudo Prosecutor-General’s Office,” he said. “I am ready to talk to investigators here in the camp.”

“Our plans are clear. Our main goal is to remove a criminal group from power and impeach it,” Mr. Saakashvili said, referring to President Petro Poroshenko’s administration.

His remarks came after prosecutors on December 5 issued a 24-hour deadline for Mr. Saakashvili to turn himself in to police, and after a predawn clash between National Police officers and protesters camping out near the Verkhovna Rada.

Ukraine’s National Police said at least 14 police officers and two civilians were injured in clashes that broke out as authorities began searching tents in an attempt to locate Mr. Saakashvili. Protesters said at least nine activists were injured.

The police “planned to take me out of a tent, but attacked the wrong tent” and “severely beat” activists who had been sleeping, Mr. Saakashvili said on Facebook.

Mr. Saakashvili also appealed to President Poroshenko in the Facebook post, saying: “Why do you want these provocations? Don’t attack and you won’t make people fight back! It’s a peaceful action! Haven’t you learned anything?”

That was reference to previous turmoil in Ukraine, including attempted crackdowns on the massive Euro-Maidan protests that pushed Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych out in 2014 and brought Mr. Poroshenko to power.

Some of Mr. Saakashvili’s supporters were stockpiling bricks at the protest camp and setting up barricades with tires shortly after dawn on December 6 as heavy snow fell on the Ukrainian capital.

Meanwhile, in Tbilisi, about 3,000 members of the Georgian political party founded by Mr. Saakashvili staged a demonstration on December 6 to warn against the former president’s extradition from Ukraine.

The demonstrators said their rally was a signal to the authorities that mass protests will be held if Mr. Saakashvili is extradited and arrested in Georgia.

The Ukrainian charges are unrelated to those Mr. Saakashvili faces in Georgia. But members of the opposition United National Movement said at the Tbilisi rally that they believe he might be extradited.

The United National Movement was ousted from power in 2012 parliamentary elections. Mr. Saakashvili is wanted in Georgia for alleged involvement in the violent dispersal of protesters and a raid on a private television station during his 2004-2013 presidency.

In Kyiv, Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) spokesman Andriy Lysenko said the authorities ordered the manhunt following a chaotic scene on December 5 in which security forces stormed Mr. Saakashvili’s apartment and detained him, but supporters later freed him from a police van.

Larisa Sarhan, a spokeswoman for the PGO, said on December 6 that Mr. Saakashvili now faces three criminal charges – attempting to commit a crime, involvement in premeditated criminal activity by a group of persons, and providing assistance to a criminal organization and concealing their criminal activities.

Ms. Sarhan also said criminal investigations had been started against several parliamentary deputies suspected of obstructing Saakashvili’s arrest on December 5.

Prosecutors have also informed National Police chief Serhiy Knyazev that Mr. Saakashvili is a wanted man.

Saakashvili vs. Poroshenko

After he was freed from detention, Mr. Saakashvili led hundreds of his supporters in a march to Parliament and demanded President Poroshenko’s resignation, calling him a “criminal” and a traitor to Ukraine.

Mr. Saakashvili also urged Ukrainians to rally on Independence Square, the epicenter of the EuroMaidan protests in 2013-2014.

“An organized criminal group has seized power in our beloved Ukraine,” Mr. Saakashvili told the impromptu rally. “I call on everyone, every real Ukrainian, to demand his resignation.”

Ukrainian authorities claim that Mr. Saakashvili is being backed by Russia or forces there – an assertion that the former Georgian president, who has been hated by the Kremlin since a five-day war between Georgia and Russia in 2008, has dismissed.

Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko alleged on December 5 that an “organized crime” group led by Mr. Yanukovych, who is in exile in Russia, has financed protests organized by Mr. Saakashvili.

Mr. Lutsenko claimed that, by pursuing Mr. Saakashvili, the Ukrainian authorities were thwarting an anti-Kyiv plot sponsored by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

Mr. Saakashvili rejected the allegations against him as “cynical and ridiculous.”

“There is no more bitter foe of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin in the world than me, and the accusation that I am linked to Russia is completely absurd,” said Mr. Saakashvili, who also called for Mr. Lutsenko’s resignation.

Mr. Lutsenko on December 5 told Parliament: “In 24 hours the entire Ukrainian justice system will do everything necessary for the stateless Saakashvili to face investigators and, afterwards, court.”

With reporting by Christopher Miller in Kyiv and Merhat Sharipzhan in Prague, Reuters, AP, AFP, DPA, UNIAN, Pravda.ua, 112.ua and Ukrayinska Pravda.

Copyright 2017, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted, in a slightly abridged version, with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington DC 20036; www.rferl.org (to read the full text, see https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-saakashvili-defiant-police-clash-supporters-kyiv-tent-camp/28899883.html).

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