Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said that there is no chance of the extradition of former President Mikheil Saakashvili to Ukraine.
Echo Caucasus writes about this.
This is how Kobakhidze responded to calls from the Ukrainian side to extradite Saakashvili or transport him to a third country.
On November 16, the advisor to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podolyak stated that the Ukrainian side was actively working on the issue of transferring Saakashvili to another country.
"This is part of our agenda. Ukraine is actively working on this issue. President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly expressed his position on Saakashvili, as we consider him a full-fledged citizen of Ukraine," Podolyak noted.
According to him, Kyiv, together with partners from the European Union and the United States, will ask the Georgian authorities to allow Saakashvili to be transferred to another country for treatment.
“When such people tell us about Saakashvili’s transfer, of course, we cannot take such reports seriously,” the Georgian Prime Minister commented.
What is known about Saakashvili?
Mikheil Saakashvili was the president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013. He renounced his Georgian citizenship in 2013 and became a citizen of Ukraine. In 2021, he returned to Georgia, where he was arrested, because by that time Saakashvili had been convicted in absentia.
The ex-president ended up in prison. In July 2023, the Verkhovna Rada asked Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili to pardon Saakashvili.
In March 2025, he was also sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison for illegally crossing the Georgian border in October 2021. His total sentence is 12 years and 6 months in prison, until April 1, 2034.
On November 13, Saakashvili was returned to prison from the prison hospital. The politician claims that he is being persecuted because of Russiaʼs aggression against Ukraine and accused of sabotage in favor of a foreign enemy state [Ukraine].
The next day, Saakashvili appealed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and asked to include him on the list of prisoners as the former head of the Odessa Regional State Administration and chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Council of Reforms, who was "illegally detained by the pro-Russian regime in Georgia".
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