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August 17th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Former Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili said on August 16 that he will return to Ukraine on September 10. Saakashvil had his Ukrainian citizenship suspended by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko earlier this year.
Saakashvili released a video statement from Warsaw saying that he would return to Ukraine through the Krakovets checkpoint in Lvov Obl on the Ukrainian – Polish border. Sakashvili, whose legal status is disputed said:
“I’ve had offers to get citizenship from several European countries but this is not for me. … I’ve committed to help Ukrainians get rid of oligarchs and crooks. … First (Ukrainian authorities) got rid of war veterans and volunteer fighters. … Now they are cracking down on people who are fighting oligarchs and corruption, for example, Vitaly Shabunin, and have become a major obstacle to those who are robbing and destroying the country.”
On August 16 police in the Ukrainian capital Kiev handed Vitaly Shabunin, head of the executive board of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a notice of suspicion. Police is investigating him for allegedly having assaultedjournalist and activist Vsevolod Filimonenko. Shabunin believes the case to be a political vendetta for his criticism of the authorities.
Deputy Prosecutor General Eugene Enin, for his part, has claimed that Mikhail Saakashvili needed a visa to come to Ukraine. Saakashvili’s lawyer, Markiyan Halabala, however, argued that, under Ukrainian law, stateless persons who permanently reside in Ukraine do not need a visa. On July 26, 11 out of the Citizenship Commission’s 15 members voted for stripping Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship. Oleksiy Takhtai, one of the commission members and the Interior Ministry’s state secretary, supported the decision.
In video footage uploaded to YouToube, people resembling Takhtai, then Deputy Interior Minister Serhiy Chebotar and Vasyl Petrivsky, CEO of state firm Spetservis, negotiate a corrupt deal to sell sand seized in a criminal case. According to the court register, the video footage is genuine and has been recorded by the Security Service of Ukraine. Commenting on the accusations, Takhtai has said that he had not seen the video.
In the video, Chebotar says that Interior Minister Arsen Avakov is also aware of the deal and is worried that the sand has not been sold yet. Chebotar had to resign due to corruption scandals in 2015. Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker Serhiy Kaplin said then that a notice of suspicion had been prepared for Chebotar, and he had fled Ukraine. Petrivsky has been charged by prosecutors with embezzlement.
Poroshenko’s Deputy Chief of Staff Oleksiy Dniprov, who according to critics must be fired under the 2014 lustration law, voted for the decision on Saakashvili too. Poroshenko has refused to fire Dniprov regardless of the law. Dniprov is also under investigation in a theft case against his former boss, ex-Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk. The move was also backed by Security Service of Ukraine Deputy Chief Viktor Kononenko, who headed the unit that organized a paid protest in front of Shabunin’s house.
At the end of July 2017 Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree to suspend former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s Ukrainian citizenship. Saakashvili is a fugitive from justice in Georgia. Poroshenko signed the decree after Ukraine’s State Migration Service had submitted evidence that Saakashvili had given incorrect information when he applied for Ukrainian citizenship in 2015 and after the Commission on Citizenship approved the suspension.
The decree cannot be published by the administration or other Ukrainian authorities because its publication would violate the law on protection of personal data. However, political discussions prior to the signing of the decree strongly suggest that Saakashvili may have given false information about the fact that he was under investigation in Georgia and abroad when he applied for Ukrainian citizenship in 2015.
Petro Poroshenko granted Saakashvili Ukrainian citizenship in May 2015 when he, controversially, appointed him as governor of Odessa Oblast (region). In December 2016 Georgian authorities stripped Saakashvili of his Georgian citizenship. The legal status of Saakashvili is complicated. Because Georgia stripped Saakashvili of his citizenship, Ukraine’s suspension of his Ukrainian citizenship, arguably, leaves Saakashvili stateless. Saakashvili and his lawyers could in other words challenge the suspension and also challenge any possible extradition to Georgia as well.
Moreover, the Ukrainian Constitution bans authorities from “stripping” anyone of citizenship, but lawyers discuss whether this also implies that they are prohibited from “suspending” someone’s citizenship. One might guess that either way, some lawyers will get rich “discussing” the issue.
In November 2016 Saakashvili left his office as governor of Odessa Obl. Much to the dismay of Poroshenko, Saakashvili, who is known for being somewhat unstable and erratic, has since launched his own political party, the Movement of New Forces (United National Movement). The party has been openly outspoken and criticized Ukrainian authorities.
In April 2017 Poroshenko and his administration also suspended the citizenships Sasha Borovik, and ally of Saakashvili, and Radical Party lawmaker Andriy Artemenko, because they allegedly have German and Canadian citizenship, respectively. Borovik denounced the suspension of his citizenship as “an unprecedented move that is more characteristic of the Soviet Union and other dictatorships”.
Saakashvili is wanted by the current Georgian government and Georgian authorities on a number of criminal charges. Saakashvili claims the charges are false, trumped-up and politically motivated. In 2014 prosecutors in Georgia charged Saakashvili with exceeding his authority. He was also charged with the use of force against protesters in the capital Tblisi in November 2007 and orders to raid a television station.
CH/L – nsnbc 16.09.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/08/16/saakashvili-set-to-return-to-ukraine-on-september-10/
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