Ukraine denies Saakashvili refugee status for the second time
The State Migration Service has repeatedly refused to consider the former Georgian President and leader of the Movement of New Forces party, Mikheil Saakashvili’s application to obtain refugee status or as a person who needs additional protection, as indicated by his lawyer, Markiyan Halabala.
"Today we received documents from the Migration Service. It is not a refusal to provide additional protection, but a refusal to accept the application," he said. According to him, the refusal was made due to the lack of grounds for obtaining such a status.
Markian Halabala has assured that the Migration Service’s refusal will be unequivocally appealed, but they are still deciding which approach to take.
"There are two options: it can be appealed by an administrative order or in court, you can do both simultaneously, or you can do them consecutively," he said.
According to the press service of the Movement of New Forces party, on October 31st, during a long interview with the Migration Service, Saakashvili provided detailed and well-founded reasons and grounds for determining his risk of being prosecuted in his home country, Georgia, as well as the potential for the systematic violation of his human rights in Georgia.
In addition, Saakashvili's lawyer, Ruslan Chernolutsky, has noted that Saakashvili will appeal against the denial of the Migration Service to consider his application for additional protection in the Kyiv District Administrative Court.
The Georgian citizen, Mikheil Saakashvili, received a Ukrainian passport in late May 2015, so that he could be appointed as the head of the Odessa Regional State Administration.
According to the Constitution, a citizen of Georgia cannot simultaneously be a citizen of another country, and in October 2015, the Georgian Ministry of Justice started the procedure to revoke Saakashvili’s citizenship.
In November 2016, Saakashvili resigned from the post of the head of the Regional State Administration, and in the summer of 2017, President Petro Poroshenko revoked Saakashvili’s Ukrainian citizenship. This occurred as it was discovered that he allegedly gave false information when registering for citizenship.
Saakashvili was in the USA at the time and at the beginning of September 2017, he illegally crossed the border of Ukraine with the help of his supporters and soon applied to the State Migration Service to grant him refugee status.
On October 24th, the State Migration Service of Ukraine denied Mikheil Saakashvili, the former head of the Odessa Regional State Administration, refugee status. General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko did not exclude the possibility of Saakashvili’s expulsion from the country.