Saakashvili recaptured

Ukrainianpolice recaptured the former Georgia president Mikheil Saakashvili lateon Friday, prompting further protests in central Kyiv by his supporterswho freed him from police custody earlier this week.The developmentis the latest twist in a long feud between Ukrainian authorities andSaakashvili, who has turned on his one-time patron President PetroPoroshenko, accusing him of corruption and calling for his removal fromoffice.General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko said that the oppositionleader had been detained by police and was in a temporary detentionfacility.“As promised, security officers did everything to avoid extreme violence and bloodshed,” he said in a post on Facebook.The prosecutor has accused Saakashvili of supporting a criminal organisation, among other charges.Heis said to have received money from deposed president ViktorYanukovych, who is currently living in exile in Russia, in order toorganise a coup d’etat.If found guilty, he faces up to five years in prison.Saakashvili has gone on hunger strike to protest his arrest, his lawyer and supporters said yesterday.“Saakashvilihas announced an indefinite hunger strike,” journalist and close allyVladimir Fedorin wrote on Facebook, in comments echoed by the formerleader’s lawyer Ruslan Chornolutskyi to the Interfax-Ukraine newsagency.The 49-year-old denounced the “false accusations” against him, Chornolutskyi added.Saakashvili’srecapture follows a surreal game of hide-and-seek that saw him clamberon a roof to avoid law enforcement, before being broken out of a policevan by protesters amid clashes with hundreds of riot police on Tuesday.Allyand fellow Georgian, Davit Sakvarelidze, who was fired in March fromhis post as a senior prosecutor for Ukraine, called on Kyiv residents totake to the streets to protest Saakashvili’s recapture.“TodayPoroshenko broke all records and went down in history as a dictator whodoes this to political opponents,” he told channel NewsOne near thedetention centre in central Kyiv.Around 100 supporters ofSaakashvili, the man who pulled Georgia out of Russia’s orbit in a 2003revolution before becoming a governor in Ukraine, gathered outside asecurity service detention centre shouting “shame” on Friday followinghis arrest.A court hearing on the case is expected be held in Kyiv tomorrow.Prosecutorswould ask for Saakashvili to be held under pretrial house arrest,spokeswoman for the prosecutor general Larysa Sargan said.SinceSaakashvili escaped detention on Tuesday, he has continued leadingprotests outside parliament, demanding Poroshenko’s impeachment over hisfailure to fight high-level corruption.Saakashvili denies committing any crimes and says his actions were peaceful and legal.Tuesday’sdrama marked the latest chapter in the dizzying career of a man whospearheaded a pro-Western “Rose Revolution” in Georgia in 2003 andfought a disastrous war with Russia five years later that eventuallyprompted him to flee the Caucasus country.Saakashvili returned tothe spotlight as a vocal champion of the three-month street uprising inKyiv that toppled a Moscow-backed government in 2014 and turned Ukraineon a pro-EU course.Poroshenko rewarded Saakashvili for his efforts by appointing him governor of the important Black Sea region of Odessa in 2015.However,an ugly falling out between the two men saw Saakashvili stripped of hisUkrainian passport – only for him to defy the authorities and force hisway back into the conflict-riven country with the help of supporters inSeptember.The saga threatens to embarrass the pro-Westernauthorities at a time when they face a chorus of criticism fromreformers and foreign donors over perceived backtracking on reforms andattacks on anti-corruption institutions.On Friday Poroshenko said the case against Saakashvili was legitimate and that he should cooperate with investigators.“If he flees from the investigation, this undermines his credibility,” he said.Afterescaping police custody, Saakashvili called for a rally againstPoroshenko in Kyiv to be held today, although he has kept a low profilein recent days after reportedly catching a cold while sleeping inmakeshift protest camp outside parliament.The politician’s latestdetention followed a failed attempt by police to recapture him in a raidon the camp on Wednesday, which led to violent clashes with protesters.While Saakashvili has a core base of supporters, he enjoys limited support across Ukraine.Only1.7% of voters would support his party, the Movement of New Forces, inelections, according to an October survey by the Kiev-based RazumkovCentre think-tank.His backers see him as a fearless crusader againstcorruption but critics have said that there is little substance behindhis rhetoric.