Saakashvili: his health, conditions in prison, and future prospects. Video
What is happening with Saakashvili, the ex-president of Georgia, who has been in prison since October 2021? A short video-explainer.
Mikheil Saakashvili was put on the wanted list by Georgia’s new authorities who came to power in 2012, then arrested shortly after he’d illegally returned to the country in October 2021, and sentenced to six years in prison.
Currently, he is seriously ill and has been in Tbilisi’s Vivamedi private clinic since May 2022. The court has recently rejected his defense team’s petition, filed in view of his deteriorating health, to release him from prison or to postpone the rest of his sentence.
On February 15, the European Parliament adopted a special resolution calling on the Georgian authorities to pardon Mikheil Saakashvili and let him go abroad for treatment. Many local and Western politicians, presidents, and human rights activists have made the same appeals.
The authorities, however, say that Saakashvili is “faking it” and have published videos of him moving around his hospital room unassisted as “proof”. Local human rights activists consider this a human rights violation and intend to challenge the publications in court.
Saakashvili’s associates, his family, and some of the doctors who have been tending to him say that his condition is incompatible with prison conditions and that this could cost him his life.
The video was prepared by the editors of Mediaset.
