Parliament Vice Speaker: imprisoned former President’s entourage interested in facilitating his escape from justice

Archil Talakvadze, the Georgian Parliament's Vice Speaker, on Thursday said the entourage of the imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili “do not care about his health”, alleging their interest in facilitating his escape from justice through a bypassing of the law.

Talakvadze was commenting on footage of Saakashvili, released on social media on Wednesday by the Special Penitentiary Service of Georgia, that showed his condition during different periods spent by the former official at the Vivamedi civilian clinic in Tbilisi.

There is high public interest [in the subject of Saakashvili’s health in detention], and the footage once again confirmed what many people had suspected before - that the patient does not cooperate with doctors [and] he is also not feeding properly. The criticism of treatment results, criticism of doctors, discrediting of the penitentiary healthcare system are groundless in this case”, the Parliament official said.

Talakvadze also stressed the interest of Saakashvili's political team to use his imprisonment and health-related issues to “somehow destabilise” the situation in the country and bring a “dissonance” to the process of European integration of Georgia.

The reality is that the Government has expressed its full readiness to provide Mikheil Saakashvili with complete medical services [and] to invite any doctor that his family and the defence consider necessary for his health interests - although we have not yet received an answer to this, which proves that in fact these people and Saakashvili's entourage do not care about his health issues, but have other interests,” he alleged.

“This is a direct political motivation and a desire to facilitate his escape from justice by bypassing the law”, the Parliament official concluded.

Rati Bregadze, the Georgian Justice Minister, on Wedneasday said by publishing the footage, the Service had a “legitimate goal to properly inform the public that no one is tortured in Georgia, [and] [...] show that the state is trying its best to ensure the protection of human rights”.

• Penitentiary service releases footage of ex-pres. Saakashvili’s condition in Vivamedi clinic [VIDEO]

Saakashvili has been receiving treatment at the Vivamedi clinic since May 12, after he was moved from the Gori Military Hospital - where he was transferred in late November from the hospital of the Gldani No.18 prison. The latter, in turn, served as his detention location after his move from the Rustavi No.12 prison, the initial detention venue, in early November 2021.

The third President, currently a citizen of Ukraine, was arrested in Tbilisi in October 2021 on his clandestine return to Georgia ahead of municipal elections. He has been serving a six-year term for abuse of power in two separate cases stemming back to his time in office, while three other cases are pending.