Lawyer claims ex-pres. Saakashvili fell down, hit his head, doctors reject reports

Shalva Khachapuridze, the lawyer of the currently imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili on Thursday claimed the former official had fallen in a ward of Tbilisi Vivamedi civilian clinic and received a “severe injury” after alleged hitting of his head to an iron table.  

 

The lawyer urged the country’s justice ministry to public a video depicting the episode, after the doctors of the clinic, where Saakashvili has been receiving treatment since May 2022, claimed no such incident had been observed. 

 

The clinic leadership also rejected the lawyer’s claims that the former official hit his head on an iron table in his ward by saying there was “no such table in Saakashvili’s luxurious ward”. 

 

In his comments Khachapuridze also slammed the clinic for offering “only superficial” treatment to his client, while the clinic reiterated its previous worries that the former official refused to eat in a bid to reportedly facilitate his release on medical grounds. 

 

The Tbilisi city court and the court of appeals earlier this year rejected Saakashvili’s motion on the postponement of his six-year-term for abuse of power while in office on medical grounds, amid the claims of Saakashvili’s family and his legal team over his “utterly complicated” health. 

 

Saakashvili, who currently holds Ukrainian citizenship, was arrested in Tbilisi in October 2021 after eight years in self-imposed political exile. 

 

The Georgian Dream authorities claim the former president had been sent by unidentified forces to stage a coup and then “drag” the country into the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.