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Saakashvili's Arrest

Mikheil Saakashvili was detained on the morning of December 5. SBU officers, on the instructions of the Prosecutor General's Office, conducted searches of his apartment in Kyiv. During the searches of Saakashvili's home, his lawyer was not allowed to see him.

Mikheil Saakashvili himself climbed onto the roof of the building and threatened to jump, but law enforcement officers nevertheless managed to detain him.

Activists blocked the car in which they tried to take Saakashvili away. There were clashes with the police. Present at the scene were MPs, including Serhii Leshchenko, Mustafa Nayyem and Yurii Derevianko. They called on people not to tolerate such arbitrariness by the authorities, regardless of how people feel about Saakashvili himself.

Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yurii Lutsenko stated that SBU officers detained the leader of the "Movement of New Forces" Mikheil Saakashvili because his team had been financed by the fugitive oligarch Serhii Kurchenko. Allegedly, the former President of Georgia received half a million dollars from Russia.

The day before, in the same case, Saakashvili's associate Severion Dangadze, who heads the party's branch in Kyiv Oblast, was detained. These events took place shortly after the "impeachment" march that Saakashvili organised on Sunday.

There are currently no plans to deport Saakashvili. The prosecutor's office will seek round-the-clock house arrest for Saakashvili, and for Dangadze – detention.

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