Ex-Georgian President Saakashvili Says Will Return to Georgia in 1-3 Months

KIEV (Sputnik) - Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said that he would return to his home country in one to three months, despite his Ukrainian citizenship being restored and Georgian prosecution seeking to indict him on criminal charges.

"One to three months," Saakashvili told Ukrainian 1+1 broadcaster when asked when the ex-president planned to return to his home country.

Earlier on Monday, the Georgian Prosecutor General's Office said that it still sought Saakashvili's extradition and would continue to pursue his criminal prosecution.

Saakashvili's remark comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy restored last week the Ukrainian citizenship of Saakashvili, who landed in Kiev the next day.

Georgia seeks its former president’s extradition since 2014, imputing to him several criminal felonies, such as abuse of power and $5 million fraud in state funds. In 2015, Saakashvili was appointed governor of Ukraine’s Odessa region by the former Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, and denounced his Georgian citizenship upon obtaining a new Ukrainian passport.

In the next two years, Kiev rejected several extradition requests by Tbilisi before ousting Saakashvili in July 2017 and recalling his citizenship. Since then, Saakashvili resided in Warsaw, Poland.