Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who is also a former governor of Ukraine’s Odesa region, says his brother David has been detained in Kyiv. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports.
Saakashvili wrote on Facebook that his brother was detained by eight law enforcement officers near his home in the early morning on September 2.
Saakashvili said that Ukrainian authorities are “apparently trying to influence me so I changed my mind about returning” to the country.
Saakashvili, who is currently in Poland, announced last month that he plans to return to Ukraine on September 10 by crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border in Ukraine’s western region of Lviv.
President Petro Poroshenko stripped Saakashvili of his Ukrainian citizenship on July 26, a move the former Georgian president condemned as an “illegal way to remove me from the political scene in Ukraine.”
Ukrainian authorities have said they will bar Saakashvili from entering the country and will confiscate his passport should he attempt entry.
Saakashvili was stripped of his Georgian citizenship in 2015 after he took Ukrainian citizenship in order to become Odesa governor, the post he resigned from in November, saying that the government in Kyiv was sabotaging crucial reforms.
Georgia is seeking Saakashvili’s extradition to face charges related to the violent dispersal of protesters and a raid on a private television station.
He says the charges are politically motivated.