TBILISI — A Georgian court on Monday rejected an appeal to release former President Mikheil Saakashvili from prison on health grounds, Saakashvili’s legal team said.
Saakashvili, who led the former Soviet republic as a pro-Western reformer from 2004 to 2013, is serving a six-year sentence for abuse of power, a charge that he and his supporters say was politically motivated.
Sign up to receive the daily top stories from the National Post, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.
Thanks for signing up!
A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.
The next issue of NP Posted will soon be in your inbox.
In a statement shared by Saakashvili’s team, the ex-leader slammed the ruling as a “death sentence” handed down by his political opponents.
“The Georgian court hearing turned out to be a total joke,” Saakashvili said.
“The government’s experts did not even bother to see me once, but the court believed them, and not the international team that included a Nobel prize winner, that said if I stay in prison I will die. Now I’ve basically got a death sentence.”
Saakashvili has staged multiple hunger strikes while in prison and alleges he has been poisoned. His health has drastically deteriorated and he has lost over 40% of his body weight since October 2021, according to health records shared by his political ally and family spokesman Giorgi Chaladze.
Georgian officials say the ex-president is simulating the seriousness of his condition in order to gain early release.
Saakashvili’s team were seeking permission for him to be released or allowed to be transferred abroad for medical treatment.
Supporters gathered at the court in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi on Monday evening to protest the ruling.
The United States and European Union have both publicly highlighted the plight of Saakashvili during the two-month court hearing, saying the Georgian authorities were responsible for the former leader’s health.
Saakashvili, 55, swept to power at the start of 2004 after Georgia’s pro-democracy Rose Revolution had ousted the previous president. He ushered in sweeping anti-corruption reforms in a bid to haul the country out of its ex-Soviet legacy, but his outspoken nature frequently upset his opponents.
Under his leadership Georgia fought a short war with Russia over the status of pro-Moscow breakaway republics in 2008 and he eventually appeared to lose popular support for his reform program. He stood down at elections in 2013 – according to Georgia’s two-term limit – in a vote which saw his political rivals in the Georgian Dream party emerge victorious. (Reporting by Jake Cordell and Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Hugh Lawson)
