Georgian ex-president escapes Ukraine custody

KIEV: Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvili escaped Ukrainian custody in Kiev on Tuesday as a mob of his supporters broke into a vehicle that he was being transported in.

The supporters, who had blocked off the road, broke a window of the vehicle and dislodged a door, allowing Saakashvili to climb out, state news agency Ukrinform reported.

Saakashvili, who has challenged the authority of the president of Ukraine, was detained earlier in the day on the roof of an apartment building in Kiev.

Saakashvili has drummed up support at rallies throughout Ukraine for an anticorruption campaign that has targeted Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko after entering the country illegally in September.

He had been living in the building where he was detained, the Security Service of Ukraine said in a statement.

He faces up to five years in prison for illegally crossing the Polish border into Ukraine amid a mass brawl between his supporters and Ukrainian authorities.

Saakashvili was Georgia’s president for nearly a decade until 2013, when an opposing party promoting closer ties with Russia took power.

He then supported Poroshenko’s ascent to Ukraine’s presidency and in 2015 was invited to serve as governor of the country’s prominent Odessa region on the Black Sea.

Saakashvili resigned from that post a year and a half later, accusing Poroshenko of perpetuating entrenched corruption.

In July, while Saakashvili was out of the country, Poroshenko stripped him of his Ukrainian citizenship. – dpa