After that, everyone who stood in Ivanishvili’s way began to suffer a mass depression and one by one they committed suicide – Mikheil Saakashvili

According to the third president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, he “averted Georgia’s great disaster five times,” including by thwarting attempts to strengthen Russian influence in the country after 2003, ending Aslan Abashidze’s rule in Adjara, and gaining international support during the 2008 war.

Saakashvili made this statement during his trial.

According to him, he “saved” the country for the first time when Eduard Shevardnadze was removed from power.

“The first time we removed Shevardnadze from power, the Russians had prepared Vasadze separately and Ivanishvili, Patarkatsishvili separately, to seize power in 2005,” Saakashvili said.

According to him, the second case was the removal of Aslan Abashidze from power, because, in his assessment, if Abashidze remained, Georgia as a state would not have been formed.

According to Saakashvili, the third case was the prevention of a coup d’état in 2007 by Patarkatsishvili, according to him, “organized on behalf of Russia.”

“In 2008, I single-handedly saved Georgia with my connections, my friendship with George Bush, international authority, my relations with the international press, the army, and citizens. If I had not been there, Georgia’s independence would have ended in 2008,” Saakashvili said.

According to him, in 2012, he was no longer able to “save Georgia,” and in 2021, according to him, returning to the country was a “desperate attempt.”

“Despite everything, I am ready to take part in saving Georgia. I am sure that we will soon be given the opportunity to do so. When we liberate Georgia, just as Adjara was after the “Rose Revolution”, so will the liberation of Abkhazia be after the removal of Ivanishvili’s dictatorship. I believe that the administrative city of the future Georgia should be Sukhumi,” Saakashvili said.

In addition, Saakashvili held Bidzina Ivanishvili responsible for a number of serious cases and stated that the murder of Erosi Kitsmarishvili was “ordered”.

“Ivanishvili desperately wanted to take over Rustavi 2. Erosi Kitsmarishvili, who was the owner and founder, posed a very big threat to him. "I hold Ivanishvili personally responsible for the murder of Erosi Kitsmarishvili," Saakashvili said.

He also said, "In the case of Tamar Bachaliashvili, a suicide was faked," and he also linked the death of Davit Gogoberishvili to Ivanishvili.

Saakashvili said that after the war in Ukraine began, he said, there was an attempt to assassinate him in prison.

"Ivanishvili was personally responsible for the attempt to assassinate me in prison after the war in Ukraine began. They thought, there are still famines, we will blame it on famine, now there is war, who has the time for that. I fought for several months with death. Especially in the first days, I don't know how I survived," Saakashvili said.

He also said that responsibility for the case of Tornike Rizhvadze, the former chairman of the Adjara government, "directly lies with Ivanishvili."

"If we analyze this, we will realize that we are dealing with a single handwriting and serial killers... There were no such suicides during my time, after that, everyone who was hindering Ivanishvili began a mass depression and everyone committed suicide one by one," Saakashvili said.