Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the international community to help save lives of Mikhail Saakashvili and prevent his execution.
This is what the head of state wrote on his Twitter profile, quoted by “Ukrinform”.
“Currently, they are slowly killing a Ukrainian citizen, the former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili. The very fact that we still have to fight against such an attempt to de facto public execution of a person in Europe in the 21st century is a disgrace!” Zelensky wrote.
Given the threat to Saakashvili’s life, Zelensky called on the Georgian authorities to remember their obligations according to the European norms for the protection of human rights, to stop the violence and release the former president.
“Ukraine has offered solutions. I call on the world to help save Mikhail’s life and prevent his execution,” Zelensky said.
At a press conference with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen in Kyiv, Zelensky showed photos of Saakashvili and said Georgian authorities publicly tortured and killed him.
We remind you that a day earlier Saakashvili, who is in prison, has been transferred to the intensive care unit of a hospital in Tbilisi after his health deteriorated.
Saakashvili, who led the former Soviet republic as a pro-Western reformer from 2004 to 2013, is serving a six-year sentence for abuse of power, a charge he and his supporters say is politically motivated.
His medical team says his health has deteriorated significantly since he entered prison in October 2021, where he has staged repeated hunger strikes.
He is being treated at a clinic in Tbilisi, but lawyers have asked for his sentence to be transformed into a suspended one so he can be transferred abroad.
Saakashvili was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, after which he fled. Several criminal proceedings were opened against him, including murder and assault, for which the court sentenced him to prison in absentia.
The former Georgian head of state actively supported the change of government in Ukraine and in 2015 became the chairman of the Odesa regional state administration, and later an adviser to President Petro Poroshenko. Received Ukrainian citizenship.
In 2016, he left the posts he held and began to oppose Poroshenko, as a result of which he was deported in 2018. For some time he lived in the Netherlands, and under the new president Volodymyr Zelensky he returned to Ukraine again.
He returned to Georgia on October 1, 2021 to participate in local elections, but was detained at the airport and sent directly to prison.
