Crowd frees ex-Georgian leader after Kyiv arrest
MOSCOW • Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of Georgia, was freed by protesters Tuesday after a dramatic arrest on the rooftop of his apartment in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
The authorities had seized the firebrand politician, who served as governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region from 2015 to 2016, on accusations of trying to overthrow the government of his former ally Petro Poroshenko, the Ukrainian president.
The botched arrest only galvanized support for Saakashvili and led to demonstrations in the capital and a criminal case against his sympathizers in Parliament.
Saakashvili had climbed onto the roof of his eightstorey building in Kyiv and threatened to jump when heavily armed security forces stormed his apartment Tuesday morning.
“Poroshenko is a thief! Poroshenko is a traitor to Ukraine!” he yelled, before troopers seized him and put him in a van.
But protesters blocked the vehicle with other cars and makeshift barricades as the police attempted to quell the unrest with tear gas. After an hours-long impasse, the crowd broke open the side door and freed Saakashvili. With handcuffs hanging off one wrist, he called for protests to remove “Poroshenko and his whole gang” and led hundreds to the Parliament building.
While Saakashvili addressed protesters outside Parliament, Yuriy Lutsenko, the prosecutor general, accused Saakashvili of receiving US$500,000 from a “criminal gang” led by Viktor Yanukovych, the former president who fled to Russia in 2014.
Lutsenko played the MPs what he said was a recording of the former Georgian leader agreeing to send a representative to meet Sergei Kurchenko, a Yanukovych associate, who was sanctioned by the European Union after departing Ukraine in 2014.
The prosecutor said a criminal case had been opened against MPs who had “obstructed” the arrest, including popular reformers Mustafa Nayyem and Serhiy Leshchenko.