Kyiv Court To Rule On Pretrial Restrictions For Saakashvili
By RFE/RL
KYIV -- A Ukrainian court is set to decide on December 11 whether to impose pretrial restrictions on jailed Ukrainian opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili’s movements.
A message posted on Saakashvili’s Facebook account said the former Georgian president and ex-governor of Ukraine's Odesa region was brought to the Pechersky District Court.
Saakashvili was detained late on December 8, after an initial attempt to place him in custody failed on December 5 when supporters crowded around a police vehicle where he was being held after a raid on his apartment and freed him.
On December 9, prosecutors said they would ask a court to place him under house arrest with electronic monitoring pending trial.
Ukrainian authorities say Saakashvili is suspected of abetting an alleged "criminal group" led by former President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia after his ouster in February 2014. They also have suggested that Saakashvili’s protests are part of a Russian plot against Ukraine.
Saakashvili has rejected the accusations as absurd.
On December 10, thousands of people demonstrated in central Kyiv to demand Saakashvili’s release and to call for the impeachment or resignation of President Petro Poroshenko.
Saakashvili became governor of Ukraine's Odesa region in 2015 but quit a year later and is now a vocal opponent of Poroshenko.
Saakashvili’s lawyer and supporters said on December 9 that the opposition leader had declared a hunger strike to protest his arrest.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
An excerpt:
Saakashvili has not constituted a serious political threat to Poroshenko, due to his poor cooperation with other opposition groups, his low levels of public support (in September, 70% of Ukrainians evaluated his actions negatively) and the low turnout for the protests he has organised (numbering a few thousand people). From the political point of view his actions, which have compromised and disrupted the unity of the opposition, have actually been helpful to the Ukrainian authorities.