Georgia demands that Ukraine extradite the former minister of justice

Tbilisi accused Kyiv of “unfriendliness” in connection with its repeated refusal to extradite former Minister of Justice and ex-Prosecutor General Zurab Adeishvili to Georgia. The corresponding statement was published on the government’s website.

In Georgia, Adeishvili was sentenced to imprisonment on charges of illegal confiscation of private property, as well as organizing the beating of opposition politician Koba Davitashvili during anti-government speeches in November 2007.

In the statement of the government, it is noted that several criminal cases have been initiated against Adeishvili on charges of official crimes, but all these years Ukraine ignored Georgia’s requests to extradite the former official.

Earlier, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia Ilya Darchiashvili protested to the ambassadors of the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union in connection with Adeishvili’s visit to Europe as part of the Ukrainian delegation.

Zurab Adeishvili himself renounced Georgian citizenship a few years ago and now works as a special adviser to the Prosecutor General of Ukraine on cooperation with international courts, including the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which opened a criminal case against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kyiv’s position on the extradition of Adeishvila and a number of other former officials, whose extradition the ruling Georgian Dream party has been unsuccessfully seeking since coming to power in 2012, was called “unfriendly” and “contrary to the traditional friendship between the two countries” in a statement by the Georgian government.

Shortly after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the Georgian authorities of “immorality” due to the ban on Georgian volunteers from going to Ukraine to defend Kyiv and the refusal to impose sanctions against Russia. The head of the Ukrainian state recalled the ambassador from Tbilisi, and in 2023, Ukraine asked the Georgian ambassador to Kyiv to leave the country due to reports of torture in the prison of the former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili.

• The new prime minister of Georgia, Irakli Kobakhidze, began his reign with a number of radical steps in domestic and foreign policy. First, he dismissed from his post the former Minister of Health Zurab Azarashvili, who was considered one of the most influential members of the previous Cabinet. Then Kobakhidze dismissed Zurab Abashidze from the post of special representative for relations with Russia. Instead of him, Georgy Kajaiya, who has been living in Moscow for the last few years, heading the Section of Georgian Interests at the Embassy of Switzerland in Russia, was appointed representative for interaction with Moscow.