Mikheil Saakashvili’s remote appearance in court yesterday, looking frail and decimated, raised concerns among Georgia’s international partners, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, and several MEPs, who urged the Georgian authorities to transfer him abroad for medical treatment.
In a tweet today, Moldovan President Maia Sandu echoed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in expressing deep concern at the disturbing images of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in court, revealing a serious deterioration in Saakashvili’s health while in prison. President Sandu urged the Georgian authorities to take immediate action, calling for Saakashvili’s well-being to be prioritised and for urgent access to vital medical treatment abroad.
MEP Petras Austrevicius tweeted that the former President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili was denied permission for an EU medical experts examination, adding: “Georgia is losing its patriots and dream”.
MEP Vlad Gheorghe emphasizes that Georgia cannot become an EU candidate without respecting basic prisoners’ rights and that Saakashvili deserves “fair treatment, not a soviet style incarceration!”
MEP Andrius Kubilius referred to the description of torture by the Convention against Torture.
Meanwhile, at a meeting with press today, the Chairman of Georgian Dream, Irakli Kobakhidze, commented the physical condition of Mikheil Saakashvili, describing it as an “advertisement for resection”: “On the one hand, it’s an advertisement for gastric resection, and on the other it’s that his family members deliberately bring him low-calorie food”. According to Kobakhidze, for 600 days the society was deceived that Saakashvili was dying, adding: “We lived in this for 600 days, the MEPs, the resolution of the European Parliament was involved in this”.
