Saakashvili’s lawyer: ex-president to be kidnapped if taken to Gori hospital

Lawyer of Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvili, director of the opposition-minded Mtavari Arkhi, Nika Gvaramia, claims that they have information that de facto Tskhinvali special unit servicemen may kidnap Saakashvili if he is taken to a Gori military hospital for treatment. 

Saakashvili has been on hunger strike since his arrest in Tbilisi on Octopre 1, and has been demanding his transportation to a civil clinic, declining the government’s offers to receive treatment in a prison clinic. 

Georgian PM Irakli Garibashvikli has stated that the opposition has plans to spark destabilisation if Saakashvili is brought to a civil clinic. 

Saakashvili, who is a citizen of Ukraine and currently chairs the Executive Committee of the Ukrainian National Reforms Council, was arrested in Tbilisi a day before Georgian municipal elections on October 2.  

He says he returned to the country after eight years in political exile, ‘to save Georgia’ from the ‘pro-Russian rule’ of the Georgian Dream government.  In 2018, the Tbilisi City Court twice tried Saakashvili in absentia and sentenced him to six years in prison for abuse of power.