The Georgian prosecutor's office finally received a response from Interpol headquarters to the request to put former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on the international wanted list and submit him to the red notice of the world's most wanted dangerous criminals. The details of the response letter which came from Lyon were not disclosed. A definitive and final rejection is the only answer.
Apparently, Interpol referred to the organization's charter, which prohibits putting a suspect on the list if there is even the slightest suspicion that he is being prosecuted for political reasons in his country.
The criminal cases filed against Saakashvili are on four charges: the violent dispersal of anti-government mass protests on 7 November 2007, an attempt to hinder the investigation into the case of the kidnapping of Tbilisi banker Sandro Girgvliani by high-ranking police officers, a physical attack on opposition member and businessman Valeri Gelashvili (who insulted the country's First Lady, Sandra Roelofs) and spending of public money on "royal holidays" and presents for servitors.
According to Vestnik Kavkaza, Interpol did not look closely or examine the evidence which was presented by the Georgian prosecutor's office. In such cases, the international organizations operates to a common pattern: "we do not call the evidence into question, perhaps a crime was committed, but the criminal case is a political one, because we are talking about the leader of an opposition party." In such delicate situations, according to Interpol headquarters, it is better to play it safe and wait for a decision from the court hearing, which has started in Tbilisi.
In addition, putting Mikheil Saakashvili on the international wanted list would look absurd: the ex-president isn't hiding at all. All these years, after his actual flight from the country, he freely travels throughout the world, and now he is in Ukraine as the governor of the Odessa region.
It looks like Interpol is hinting to the Georgian authorities to solve this issue bilaterally with Kiev. But the Ukrainian leadership does not even consider the possibility of extraditing Saakashvili back home. Moreover, he has written an application to be granted Ukrainian citizenship, automatically rejecting his Georgian passport in so doing.
Nevertheless, Georgia has sharply reacted to the refusal of Interpol to put the ex-president on the red notice. The opposition, represented by former allies of Saakashvili in the United National Movement ruling party, has announced the verdict of the international police as "the evidence of unfounded criminal proceedings filed against the third president of the country." Although, as we have already said, this is not true: Interpol is just trying to keep its own status as an apolitical organization dedicated exclusively to crime, not politics.
Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, commenting on the decision in Lyon, gave a vivid example. According to him, Interpol recently withdrew former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who lives in Russia, as we know, from the red notice and refused to put him on the international wanted list.
