11 December 2017•Update: 11 December 2017
By Ali Cura
KIEV
Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was brought to a court on Monday in Ukraine's capital Kiev where he is being tried on at least three criminal counts.
During his hearing, he said he will continue his hunger strike, which he had started on Saturday, if the court sends him to prison.
"I showed [the world] how a president works and now I will show [the world] how he dies," Saakashvil told the judges.
He also sang the Ukranian national anthem along with his supporters.
Several Ukrainian lawmakers and Fatherland Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko attended the hearing.
An arrest warrant was issued for him, earlier this month, following a brief detention in Kiev -- in an incident that saw him climb onto the roof of his apartment building when police raided his address.
After serving as president of Georgia for 10 years, Saakashvili was appointed the governor of Ukraine's southern Odessa region by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in 2015 but he resigned the following year.
He has become an outspoken critic of Poroshenko, who he has accused of corruption.
The government has accused Saakashvili of being backed by an ally of deposed Ukranian President Victor Yanukovich.
Saakashvili was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship while in the U.S. earlier this year, rendering him stateless, but in September he crossed from Poland with the help of supporters.
His Georgian citizenship was revoked when he took up Ukrainian nationality in 2015.
