Ex-Pres. Saakashvili “refusing to respond” to interview request on clams on poisoning - official

Koka Katsitadze, the Chair of Georgia’s Special Investigation Service, on Tuesday said the country’s imprisoned former President Mikheil Saakashvili had failed to respond to his agency’s offer of an interview following the former official’s claims of having been poisoned in custody. 

The comment comes after Saakashvili earlier this month told Express.co.uk he had been poisoned on the order of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, claiming “my poisoning was greetings from Putin. I am being held in a clinic turned into a prison totally isolated from the political process”.

Katsitadze said his agency had received “no answer” from Saakashvili on whether he wished to be interviewed on the poisoning claims, and said he had also refused forensics for establishing facts around his previous claims on the subject.

The Chair of the Service said his office was still investigating the claims and using “all levers available”, and added it was studying claims of ill-treatment by Saakashvili and his team while no evidence had been identified to support the allegation after “numerous investigative acts”.

Saakashvili was transferred to Tbilisi’s Vivamedi clinic in May 2022, months after his arrest following a clandestine return to the country after eight years, and has been receiving treatment in the facility. 

Government officials have said the European Court of Human Rights' rejection in May of Saakashvili’s request for having the Government transfer him abroad on health grounds had “put an end to a slanderous campaign” against the country’s authorities on his alleged ill-treatment and torture. 

The former official, who currently holds Ukrainian citizenship, is now serving a six-year-term for abuse of power while in office in two separate cases, while three other cases involving him are still pending.