After Georgian law enforcers detained ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili on October 1, opinions in the country divided over his case.

Members of the United National Movement (UNM) party founded by Saakashvili, believe the ex-president’s arrest was a political decision. UNM member Roman Gotsiridze stressed the international community deems ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili as a political prisoner.

“When the court decision has a political aim, this is political persecution. Mikheil Saakashvili’s criminal persecution is preconditioned by the political motive and if the motive is political, the person is a political prisoner,” Roman Gotsiridze stated.

Strategy Aghmashenebeli party agrees with the argument. Party member Sergo Chikhladze assumed the ex-president is a political prisoner arrested under a political motive. “An impartial, fair court should decide on charges and evidence against Saakashvili, but we do not have an unbiased court in Georgia,” Chikhladze said.

However, MP from the opposition Citizens party, Levan Ioseliani, disagrees with the idea that Mikheil Saakashvili is a political prisoner. Still, Ioseliani believes his trial must be fair and transparent, leaving no room for questions.

“I have high hopes that Mikheil Saakashvili will be held accountable for everything,” Ia Metreveli, a mother of Amiran Robakidze, who was shot by a patrol police officer in 2004, said at a briefing today. “Unfortunately, there are many families like mine that Saakashvili and his regime troubled and destroyed. I expected that justice would restore someday, though it is too late to restore that justice. But since it happened and Saakashvili is in jail, it’s important and emotional for me. Everyone remembers how my 19-year-old innocent child was killed,” Ia Metreveli stated.

The Prosecutor’s Office reopened the investigation in the high-profile murder case of Amiran Robakidze in 2013, a year after Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream party came to power. Lia Krialashvili, a sister of former army officer Gia Krialashvili, who was suspected of mutiny plotting at Mukhrovani military unit and shot dead in May 2009 by the police after “armed resistance,” demands from the government that former President Mikheil Saakashvili be tried for the murder of her brother. “The whole of Georgia will take to the streets if Saakashvili does not serve his sentence. Six years is nothing for him,” Lia Krialashvili said at a briefing today.

The Chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party (GD) believes speaking about the political motive behind Mikheil Saakashvili’s arrest is speculation. “We all remember Mikheil Saakashvili’s crimes. Those are the torture of people, inhuman treatment, their rape in and outside prisons. That is a proven fact, and this is one of the main crimes of his regime,” Irakli Kobakhidze said.

GD member Shalva Papuashvili vowed Mikheil Saakashvili would serve his time in Georgia. He can return to Ukraine as a free citizen after. “It is absurd that ex-president is a Ukrainian citizen convicted in Georgia. Georgia has a Ukrainian citizen in jail. However, this absurdity is an unfortunate reality for us,” Papuashvili claimed.

Georgian law enforcers arrested the ex-president in Tbilisi on October 1 and sent him to Rustavi prison.