krainian Security Service officers arrest the former Georgian president and ex-Odessa Governor Mikheil Saakashvili in downtown Kiev on December 5 | Stepan Franko/EPA Ex-Georgian president Saakashvili arrested in Ukraine Former governor of Odessa detained days after being freed from police van by supporters.

Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was arrested in Ukraine late Friday, days after his supporters freed him from a police van in Kiev.

Ukraine's prosecutor-general, Yuriy Lutsenko, said in a post on his Facebook page that "everything was done to avoid bloodshed" and that Saakashvili, who has been accused of forming a "criminal group," had been placed in a "temporary detention facility."

Saakashvili was first arrested on Tuesday during a raid on his apartment. That led to chaotic scenes and clashes between his supporters and police. Before he could be taken into detention, some of his supporters broke the glass in the police van and hauled out Saakashvili, who was still wearing handcuffs. From there, they marched through downtown Kiev to the parliament.

Learning of his latest arrest, Saakashvili supporters gathered outside the detention center and chanted “glory to Ukraine” and other songs, the New York Times reported.

Saakashvili arrived in Ukraine following the country’s 2014 pro-Western revolution. President Petro Poroshenko, a friend from Saakashvili’s student days in Ukraine in the late 1980s, appointed him governor of the southern Odessa region.

But the two men fell out, and Saakashvili resigned from his post last year, accusing Poroshenko of corruption and blocking reforms. In July, Poroshenko stripped Saakashvili of the Ukrainian citizenship he received on becoming governor, opening up the possibility of Saakashvili’s deportation back to Georgia, where he was wanted on charges of abuse of power.