The Georgian Prosecutor's Office has sent a request to Belgium and Germany for the arrest and extradition of Zurab Adeyishvili, former Minister of Justice under Mikheil Saakashvili, who is now an advisor to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, UNN reports with reference to Novosti Georgia.
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Official Tbilisi sent the request for his arrest after Adeishvili, in his capacity as an advisor to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, appeared at a parliamentary hearing in Germany. Then it became known that he had traveled to Brussels.
The ambassadors of the EU and Germany were invited to the Georgian Foreign Ministry today to discuss this issue.
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The Georgian government made two statements at once. One was addressed to Kyiv, saying that high positions in Ukraine are "occupied by people who are wanted or convicted of various crimes.
The addressee of the second statement was the European Union, and the statement said that "Zurab Adeishvili's visit to the EU and Germany undermines the idea that the European bureaucracy is committed to the idea of the rule of law." And Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze called Adeishvili's visit to Brussels "an attack on European values.
After the change of power in Georgia in 2012, Adeishvili, who was one of the most influential ministers in Saakashvili's government, left the country with his family and lived abroad. In recent years, he moved to Ukraine.
A court in Georgia handed down verdicts in absentia to Adeishvili in several criminal cases, including the bankruptcy case of Kartu Bank, owned by the founder of the Georgian Dream, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Since 2013, the Georgian Prosecutor's Office has put Zurab Adeishvili on the wanted list on a number of charges, but has failed to secure his extradition. In 2015, Interpol terminated Adeishvili's international wanted list under the Red Circular, two years after it was issued.