Former Georgian President Jailed Saakashvili in ‘critical’ condition after weeks on hunger strike

Opposition leader and jailed former Georgia president Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been on a hunger strike for weeks, is in critical condition and lacks adequate medical care, doctors said Wednesday.

Saakashvili, who was president between 2004 and 2013, has refused to eat for 48 days to protest his imprisonment on October 1, shortly after his return from exile in Ukraine.

The Georgian government has refused to transfer him from the prison hospital to a civilian clinic, against the advice of doctors who warned of the risk to Saakashvili’s life.

On Wednesday, a medical council created by ombudsman Nino Lomjaria said after examining Saakashvili that his “current condition is considered critical” and that he faces a risk of fatal complications in the “immediate future.”

The prison hospital where Saakashvili is being treated does not meet his medical needs, they added, calling for his immediate transfer to intensive care in a civilian clinic better equipped to treat him.

Last week, Saakashvili was transferred to a prison hospital where, according to Amnesty International, he had been “denied dignity” and adequate care.

The human rights group on Twitter described it as “selective justice” and “apparent political revenge.”

The 53-year-old pro-Western reformer has said he was assaulted by prison guards and fears for his life.

‘Treat fairly’

The US State Department has urged the Georgian government to “treat Mr. Saakashvili fairly and with dignity.”

Several opposition lawmakers have also been on hunger strike for days, demanding adequate medical care for Saakashvili, a call reiterated by the United States and the European Court of Human Rights.

Georgia must take steps “to inform the Court of the applicant’s current state of health, ensure his safety in prison and provide him with adequate medical care for the recovery period after the hunger strike,” the ECHR said last week. He also urged Saakashvili to “cancel his hunger strike”.

On Tuesday, Justice Minister Rati Bregadze ruled out Saakashvili’s transfer to a civilian clinic, insisting that “there has not been a single case in which Saakashvili has not received the medical service he needed.”

Saakashvili said last week that he had made the decision to end the hunger strike if he was transferred to a “high-tech civilian clinic for post-hunger strike rehabilitation.”

Saakashvili’s arrest exacerbated a political crisis stemming from last year’s parliamentary elections that the opposition denounced as fraudulent.

It has also sparked some of the biggest anti-government protests in a decade.

Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili recently sparked an uproar by saying that Saakashvili “has the right to commit suicide” and that the government had been forced to arrest him because he had refused to leave politics.

(AFP)