An independent medical committee stated on Saturday (December 18) that the health of Georgia’s imprisoned opposition leader and former President Mikheil Saakashvili (Mikheil Saakashvili) was affected by torture and ill-treatment while in custody. Severe damage.
Saakashvili refused food for 50 days to protest his imprisonment for abuse of power. He condemned the conviction as politically motivated.
The 53-year-old pro-Western reformer was in a critical condition after being taken to a military hospital in the eastern Georgia city of Gori, and he cancelled the hunger strike.
The doctor who examined him during his detention stated that “due to torture, ill-treatment, inadequate medical treatment and prolonged hunger strike”, he suffered from many neurological diseases.
Their statement stated that he was diagnosed with potentially life-threatening brain diseases such as Wernicke encephalopathy and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
One of the doctors and psychiatrist Mariam Gishkariani told AFP that “the situation caused by the psychological torture suffered by Saakashvili in prison, if not received proper medical care, may lead to He is incapacitated”.
She said that Saakashvili “prescribed the wrong antipsychotic drugs he did not need, which may further damage his health.”
“This can be explained as a pharmacological torture.”
In early November, Saakashvili said he had suffered psychological torture, including death threats, sleep deprivation and physical abuse.
He said: “I have been tortured, inhumane, beaten and humiliated.”
The Georgian State Supervisory Service said in a statement last week that it “has opened an investigation into the alleged inhumane treatment of Saakashvili.”
‘Political revenge’
The independent Pirveli TV channel reported that inmates in the prison yelled threats and blasphemy against Saakashvili, who led a campaign against organized crime during his presidency.
Saakashvili once stated that this was “carefully planned by the prison administration.”
He described an episode in which he was “alone, absolutely sure that the criminals will come and kill” him because the prison guard did not respond to his call.
In November last year, the country’s Ministry of Justice released footage of the former president being dragged to the floor by prison guards while being forcibly transferred from prison to prison hospital.
Amnesty International described Saakashvili’s treatment as “not only selective justice, but also an obvious political revenge.”
The US State Department urged the Georgian government to “treat Saakashvili with fairness and dignity.”
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) requires the state authorities of the former Soviet Union to “ensure his safety in prison and provide him with appropriate medical services.”
The court said in a statement that the ruling was made in November and as part of an emergency interim measure, ECHR “only applies the measure when there is an imminent risk of irreparable damage.”
Saakashvili, who served as President of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, was arrested shortly after secretly returning to Georgia after exile in Ukraine on October 1.
His arrest exacerbated the political crisis triggered by last year’s parliamentary poll, which was condemned by the opposition for fraud.
It also triggered the largest anti-government protests in a decade.
Human rights groups accused the Georgian government of using criminal proceedings to punish political opponents and criticize the media.
Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili recently stated that the government was forced to arrest Saakashvili because he refused to withdraw from politics, which caused an uproar.
