Doctors’ concilium to assess Saakashvili’s health on hunger strike in prison

A doctors’ concilium will gather later today to assess the health condition of Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvili who was detained in Tbilisi on October 1 and who has been on hunger strike since then, Georgian Health Minister Ekaterine Tikaradze confirmed earlier today. 

 

Tikaradze said that the concilium will gather through the request of Saakashvili’s doctor Nikoloz Kipshidze. 

 

She said that per the doctors monitoring Saakashvili’s health in Rustavi Prison No.12, the ex-president’s health condition is ‘satisfactory.’ 

 

However, Kipshidze claimed that Saakashvili’s health has worsened much and reiterated that hunger strike is ‘not allowed’ for the former president who has thalassemia, a blood disease. 

 

“After the concilium, we will have detained information,” Tikaradze said. 

 

Saakashvili, who has been in political exile for eight years, returned to Georgia ahead of the October 2 municipal elections to help his United National Movement opposition party to change the Georgian Dream leadership via snap parliamentary elections. 

 

He was convicted in Georgia in absentia for abuse of authority back in 2018 and was sentenced to six years in prison. 

 

He has also been charged with four other cases related to embezzlement, illegal takeover of property, illegal rally dispersal and illegally crossing the border.