Saakashvili announces a hunger strike as an “extreme form” of complaint and leaves it after 3 hours

The imprisoned former Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili has ended this Wednesday the hunger strike declared just under three hours earlier, at the request of European parliamentarians who promised him support to guarantee his rights.

According to what one of the former president’s lawyers, Vajtang Baramashvili, told the press, “a group of members of the European Parliament” promised Saakashvili “mobilize diplomatic efforts to guarantee the minimum rights” of the politiciansentenced to six years in prison for crimes of corruption and abuse of power.

“MEPs also said that the relevant Georgian services can incriminate Saakashvili for causing harm to himself,” the lawyer added.

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Baramashvili quoted his client, who had denounced that he felt bad not because of fasting, but because he was a victim of poisoning and “inappropriate treatment for many months.”

just hours before the former president assured through another lawyer, Shalva Chajapuridze, that he had been deprived of the right to participate in his judicial processsomething he described as “a violation of Georgian and international law.”

“That is why I am forced to resort to an extreme form of protest: the hunger strike,” he said.

Last May, the former president was transferred from the Rustavi prison, a city located 25 kilometers from Tbilisi, to Vivamedi, one of the best private clinics in the capital.

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An intervention by Saakashvili by videoconference was scheduled for this Wednesday in the first session of the appeal hearing, held in the Court. According to the Georgia Correctional System, the videoconference could not take place due to “technical problems.”

The judge studying the appeal, Gueorgui Arevadze, announced that the hearing will continue on the 22nd. This Tuesday, the Georgian Minister of Justice, Rati Bregadze, stated that Saakashvili’s behavior in the clinic shows “certain simulation” and that the former president “does not follow the instructions of the doctors.”

“This simulation can be considered as a way to put pressure on the court,” said Bregadze, who warned that the Ministry of Justice “will be forced to make some videos public” if Saakashvili does not change his behavior.