Ex-president of Georgia unable to attend trial due to poor health

Saakashvili unable to attend the trial

Ex-President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili was unable to attend trial in Tbilisi City Court owing to ill health; he had formerly demanded to be allowed to appear in court himself.

Doctors did not recommend Saakashvili go to the meeting, as they feared that he might have health problems in the courtroom, Khatia Dekanoidze, a member of the National Movement party, said.

Judge Nino Chakhnashvili therefore declared the trial postponed without setting a later date.

Saakashvili’s condition has worsened even further, Dekanoidze said after she visited the Vivamed clinic where Saakashvili is being treated after a long hunger strike in prison. According to Dekanoidze, the ex-president has begun to experience neurological problems. The Georgian government prefers Saakashvili not appear in public so that people do not see the serious condition he is in, Dekanoidze believes.

“I think they don’t want the world to see what Saakashvili looks like now. They say in prison that since even doctors cannot take responsibility for transporting him, neither can the prison,” Dekanoidze said.

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Transporting Saakashvili anywhere right now is a bad idea, Nino Nadiradze, director of the Vivamed clinic, stated. According to Nadiradze, on November 25 Saakashvili saw a neurologist, who was concerned and ordered tests on November 28 and 29, Nadiradze said.

“Then doctors will determine further treatment. Under no circumstances would the doctors allow the patient to be transported to court. We, the doctors, believe that transportation is now impossible,” Nadiradze said.

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On October 6 this year the head of the State Security Service, Temur Janashia, who visited the ex-president at the Vivamed clinic, said that Saakashvili’s health had deteriorated so much that he was “actually no longer a person”, and felt very unwell due to a constant temperature of 38 degrees and high blood pressure. According to Janashia, Saakashvili is bed-ridden.

American expert Shahin Lahan, after their own visit, explained that studies show an acute shortage of all “vital indicators” and that such a condition “should not be in a normal person under conditions of normal health care.”

Saakashvili’s foreign lawyer Massimo Dangelo also visited him at the clinic and announced a significant deterioration in his client’s health. According to the lawyer, Mikheil Saakashvili’s condition “threatens his life.”

US Ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan urged the Georgian government to take he Public Defender’s recommendations on Saakashvili’s health seriously.

Mikheil Saakashvili has been in prison for more than one year. The ex-president was arrested after he secretly returned to Georgia on October 1, 2021.