Armed men with assault rifles on Feb. 9 unsuccessfully tried to arrest ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili at Kyiv’s Fairmont Grand Hotel and deport him from Ukraine, Saakashvili, his lawyers, eyewitnesses and the hotel’s security guards said.
Saakashvili said the men were from the Border Guard’s special forces. His lawyer Ruslan Chernolutsky said he had also seen Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) employees.
The armed men, whose number was estimated by various witnesses from seven to 15, tried to enter the hotel at around 3 p.m., but security guards prevented them, arguing that they did not have any documents or court warrants justifying their presence there. Subsequently the special forces went away.
Saakashvili published on Facebook what he said were photos of the people who were in charge of the operation to deport him and video footage with people who said they had been eyewitnesses of the men with assault rifles.
One of the men in the photos looks identical to a state security employee who worked as a security guard at a wedding of Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko’s son in September filmed by Radio Liberty.
Saakashvili said before that Valery Heletei, head of state security, had been in charge of the operation to expel seven of his associates from Ukraine in October to November. Heletei denied this.
An eyewitness of the kidnapping of one of the seven Georgians, David Makishvili, told the Kyiv Post last year that one of the people who detained Makishvili presented himself as an employee of the State Security Department and showed a State Security Department ID.
Vano Nadiradze, another of the seven Georgians, told the Kyiv Post that the alleged State Security Department employee present near the Fairmont Grand Hotel on Feb. 9 had taken part in his kidnapping.
“(The authorities) think that if they neutralize me, they’ll be able to get rid of all anti-corruption activists and the entire political opposition,” Saakashvili said.
Saakashvili attributed the alleged attempt to deport him to President Petro Poroshenko’s fear of the Feb. 18 rally for the president’s resignation that Saakashvili is planning.
“The corrupt authorities of Ukraine, primarily the president, are scared to death of the fact that I’m here and I’m fighting against corruption,” Saakashvili said. “(Poroshenko) is fighting against the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, anti-corruption activists, kidnapping people and seizing their assets. And he wants to get rid of me because I keep talking about their corruption and the fact that they are killing the country and plundering its national wealth.”
Oleh Slobodyan, a spokesman for the Border Guard, and Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko claimed they knew nothing about the events, neither denying nor confirming them to the Kyiv Post.
Later on Slobodyan and Olena Hitlyanska, a spokeswoman for the SBU, denied to other media that their employees had attempted to detain Saakashvili at Fairmont Hotel and deport him. The State Security Department also denied the participation of its employees in the alleged deportation attempt.
The Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal on Feb. 5 rejected Saakashvili’s political asylum appeal, potentially opening a way for his deportation or extradition from Ukraine.
Lutsenko said on Feb. 8 that Saakashvili could be either deported or extradited due to the court’s decision. Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko claimed on Feb. 9 that there were no obstacles anymore for Saakashvili’s extradition.
Saakashvili’s lawyers have argued that their client cannot be legally deported or extradited regardless of his asylum status, since it is unlawful to deport or extradite permanent stateless residents of Ukraine. Saakashvili also cannot be extradited or deported under the law because he is under investigation in a criminal case in Ukraine, they say.
Forced deportation or extradition is only possible under Ukrainian law if there is a specific court warrant for deportation or extradition. Even in that case, such a ruling can be appealed against within 30 days, and extradition or deportation can only happen after the appeals court has made its ruling.
Saakashvili’s deportation or extradition will also be illegal during the next appeal stage because his lawyers have filed an appeal against the Feb. 5 ruling on asylum with the Supreme Court and because his current residence permit from the State Migration Service is valid until March 1, Saakashvili’s lawyer Ruslan Chernolutsky said on Feb. 6.
Saakashvili and his supporters also argue that he cannot be expelled from the country because the cancellation of his Ukrainian citizenship by Poroshenko in July contradicted Ukrainian and international law, the Constitution and due process. His lawyers say that his extradition or deportation is impossible before a court decides on the legality of the cancellation of his citizenship.
Saakashvili’s extradition to Georgia is also impossible because Ukrainian authorities recognized Georgia’s criminal cases against him to be politically motivated when they rejected Georgia’s extradition requests for the ex-president in 2014 and 2015, his lawyers argued.
A Tbilisi court on Jan. 5 sentenced Saakashvili to three years in prison in absentia on abuse of power charges for pardoning convicts – accusations that he believes to be fabricated and political.
However, Saakashvili and his lawyers fear that he could be expelled from the country unlawfully. In October and November, seven Georgian associates of Saakashvili were deported to Georgia by Ukrainian authorities without court warrants, with the Georgians claiming they had been kidnapped and beaten.
Human Rights Ombudsman Valeria Lutkovska said in November that three of the Georgians had been illegally kidnapped and deported by the National Police without court warrants. The authorities denied accusations of wrongdoing, but failed to present the legal grounds for the deportations.
The Kyiv Court of Appeal on Jan. 26 placed Saakashvili under nighttime house arrest in a criminal case that he deems to be fabricated and political.
The house arrest expired on Feb. 6 but prosecutors did not file a motion to extend it. Saakashvili’s lawyers attributed this to the authorities’ plans to illegally deport or extradite him.
Pechersk Court Judge Larysa Tsokol ruled on Dec. 11 that Saakashvili’s detention by the SBU, prosecutors and police without a court warrant and any other legal grounds on Dec. 5 was unlawful.
