US Ambassador: Tbilisi must follow ombudsman's recommendations on Saakashvili's health
US Ambassador to Georgia about Saakashvili’s health
US Ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan urges the Georgian government to take the Ombudsman’s recommendations regarding the health of Georgia’s third President Mikheil Saakashvili seriously.
“We are closely monitoring the state of health of Mikheil Saakashvili. We urge that qualified medical personnel visit and provide appropriate treatment. We have full confidence in the recommendations of the Ombudsman, in how the monitoring was carried out and recommendations he will receive in the future”, the ambassador said.
According to her, the Public Defender’s Office has a constitutional mandate to protect the rights of any citizen:
“We believe that this is an appropriate body that is doing a very good job and therefore it would be good if its recommendations were taken into account”.
According to the Public Defender’s Council of Georgia, the state of health of ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, who is imprisoned in Georgia, has worsened. In particular, he is suffering from anorexia and protein hunger.
The family asks to transfer him for treatment abroad.
Mikheil Saakashvili has been under arrest for seven months now. The ex-president was arrested after he secretly returned to Georgia on October 1, 2021.
The former president of Georgia is in the Rustavi 12th colony. He considers himself a political prisoner, so during this time he went on hunger strike twice in protest. Saakashvili’s first hunger strike lasted 51 days.
During the strike, he was he was first forcibly placed in the Gldani prison hospital, then, after a sharp deterioration in his condition and numerous protests of his supporters, on November 19 he was transferred to a military hospital in the city of Gori.
On November 10, the European Court of Human Rights issued a decision and called on Mikheil Saakashvili to end the hunger strike and instructed the state to ensure the prisoner’s safety and adequate treatment.
