A short video appeared on social media showing Mikheil Saakashvili, who ruled Georgia between 2004 and 2013, looking gaunt at the court hearing of a case brought against him for alleged abuse of power.
Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky has protested the situation to the Georgian authorities. Saakashvilli is a citizen of Ukraine.
Zelensky said that “Russia is killing a citizen of Ukraine using Georgia. We have repeatedly called on Tbilisi to stop this abuse and to agree to Saakashvili returning to Ukraine.” Zelensky confirmed that the Ukrainian ministry of foreign affairs summoned the Georgian ambassador to Ukraine and asked him to return to Tbilisi for consultations.
News portal Meduza has quoted Mikheil Saakashvili’s brother David as saying that it is very likely that the former president of Georgia was poisoned. In his view, his brother is “losing weight and well on the way to dying.”
According to Meduza the 1.95 meter tall Saakashvili weighed 116 kilograms before his arrest in October 2021. In February of this year, he was reported to have weighed 67 kilograms. He has been treated in intensive care after going on hunger strike.
Former President of Georgie Mikheil Saakashvili left his country in 2013 and was sentenced in his absence for abuse of power to six years in prison. He lived in Ukraine and was for a while governor of Odessa before returning to Georgia in October 2021 in order to encourage his supporters to contest local elections.
He was arrested on arrival and sent to prison. He regards himself to be a political prisoner.
