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Saakashvili lectures in the US.

Former Georgian president exiled in trendy New York

Georgia's former president is spending his self-imposed exile in one of New York City's hippest neighborhoods.

AP

Georgia's former president is spending his self-imposed exile in one of New York City's hippest neighborhoods.

reported on Saturday that Mikhail Saakashvili passes the days in the borough of Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighbourhood.

The area along the East River boasts beautiful views of the Manhattan skyline and is home to dozens of cafes, trendy restaurants and moneyed hipsters.

Saakashvili says he takes the subway, rides his bicycle and visits street flea markets. He was also writing a memoir, delivering "very well-paid" speeches and helping start up a Washington-based think tank, he said.

Saakashvili led Georgia during its five-day war with Russia in 2008. Initially, he was heralded for instituting liberal reforms.

He now faces charges of illegally breaking up a protest, taking over a television station and seizing the property of a businessman. Saakashvili, who lectures at Tufts University, dismissed the accusations as groundless and politically motivated.

He has refused to return to Georgia to be questioned by prosecutors and says he has no confidence in the current authorities. A Georgian court last Friday ordered the seizure of his family assets. He also faces arrest if he returns.

The property included Saakashvili's two-hectare vineyard in east Georgia and a small apartment belonging to him in Tbilisi as well as his wife's flat in the capital, tiny plots of land owned by his mother and grandmother and his grandmother's 10-year-old Toyota car, his lawyer, Otar Kakhidze, said.

"The sequestrated property has nothing to do with the charges brought against Mikheil Saakashvili," Kakhidze said, adding that he would appeal the ruling in the European Court of Human Rights.

A slew of Saakashvili's top allies have been investigated and some jailed since his United National Movement party was defeated in parliamentary and presidential elections in 2012 and last year by the Georgian Dream coalition. The United States and European Union have voiced concerns over what they perceive as a witch-hunt against Saakashvili and his entourage.

"We are concerned by the continued investigations and criminal charges against opposition figures and the risks that politicised prosecutions would pose for Georgia's democracy," the US State Department said this month in a statement.

The fervently pro-Western Saakashvili first came to power in 2003 after a peaceful "Rose Revolution" that led to president Eduard Shevardnadze's resignation.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Ex-Georgian president a New York hipster
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