Court leaves participant in border crossing incident involving Saakashvili in pretrial custody

14:47, 26.09.2017 1 min read

Lviv region's appeals court has left Oleksandr Burtsev, a colleague of ex-head of Odesa region and leader of New Forces Movement Mikheil Saakashvili, in custody. Burtsev participated in the illegal crossing of the Ukraine-Poland border at the Shehyni checkpoint.

The ruling upheld a lower court ruling remanding Burtsev in custody until November 9. Bursev fainted when the verdict was read aloud in court.

As earlier reported, Saakashvili arrived in Ukraine on September 10. His supporters gathered at the Shehyni checkpoint and began a fight with border guards in the transit zone, helping Saakashvili and a group of other people, including five parliament deputies, illegally cross the border. Thirteen Ukrainian National Police officers and nine border guards were injured in the incident.