Patriarch asks Saakashvili suspend his hunger strike

Georgian Patriarch Ilia II  has sent a letter to the arrested former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, to prison and asked him to suspend his 35-day hunger strike. 

Patriarchate’s spokesperson Mikael Botkoveli came to Saakashvili toi Rustavi Prison No.12 earlier today to give the patriarch’s letter. On October 7, the patriarch also requested Saakashvili to stop the hunger strike ‘which is not a Christian way of behaviour.’ Saakashvili, now a citizen of Ukraine who chairs the Executive Committee of the Ukrainian National Reforms Council, was arrested in a flat in Tbilisi on October 1, ahead of the October 2 municipal elections. 

Saakashvili claims that he returned after eight years in political exile to remove the Georgian Dream government from power via snap parliamentary elections. He was convicted in 2018 in Georgia in absentia for abuse of authority and has also been charged with four other crimes, including ‘illegally crossing the border’ from Ukraine to Georgia.