Georgia revokes ex-president’s citizenship
Georgia has revoked the citizenship of former president Mikheil Saakashvili, citing the new Ukrainian citizenship he acquired earlier this year to serve as governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region.
“Based on the law on Georgian citizenship, President Giorgi Margvelashvili signed a decree terminating Mikheil Saakashvili’s citizenship due to his acquisition of a foreign country’s nationality,” said a statement issued by the president’s press service.
The May appointment of pro-Western Saakashvili as head of Ukraine’s Black Sea region was seen as Kiev’s defiant signal to Moscow.
Saakashvili furiously slammed the measure by President Margvelashvili, saying it was an attempt to “block” his candidacy in Georgia’s next elections.
“I was forced to leave my country as I was threatened with an arrest,” he said during an interview with Georgia’s Rustavi-2 TV station.
Saakashvili, who resigned as the Georgian president in 2013 after nearly a decade in power, is now a fugitive for alleged embezzlement and abuse of power charges. A number of Saakashvili’s key allies have also been probed and some imprisoned since his United National Movement (UNM) party was defeated in parliamentary and presidential polls in 2012 and 2013.
During his presidency in Georgia, the 47-year-old Saakashvili emerged as a major adversary of Russia as he tried to lead the country closer to the West.
The collapse of ties with Moscow then turned into an open conflict in 2008, when Russia defeated Georgia in a five-day war over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
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