Foreign Relations Committee Chair says MEPs collecting signatures to urge President to pardon Saakashvili

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Read: 331     14:00     20 Февраль 2024    

“Signatures are collected in the European Parliament to ask President Salome Zourabichvili to pardon Mikheil Saakashvili (jailed ex-president). Old channels of lobbyism are activated to force or pressure Zourabichvili,” said Nikoloz Samkharadze, Chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee.

According to Samkharadze, President Zourabichvili, who departed for the Munich Security Conference (MSC) without the government’s permission, found herself in an “awkward situation” at the panel discussion when she was “directly hinted” to pardon Saakashvili.

“I want to tell society that there is nothing new but a part of the old campaign going on within and outside the country. Our well-known or less-known MEPs are collecting signatures to ask the President for Saakashvili’s pardoning and they link this fact to the death of Alexei Navalny (Russian opposition leader). They want to draw parallels.  Old channels of lobbyism are activated to force or pressure Zourabichvili to pardon Saakashvili,” he said.

“I do not think that we can compare,” said President Salome Zourabichvili in an interview with Bloomberg answering the question on the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and jailed ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili’s health state.





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