Opposition MP: Magnitsky List for Saakashvili treatment “not credible”

Iago Khvichia, an MP for the Girchi opposition party, on Monday said the imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili’s call for Bill Browder, the author of the Magnitsky List that named Russian officials responsible for the 2009 death of tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in detention for subsequent Western sanctions, to compile a similar list for his alleged mistreatment in detention was “not credible” and rejected claims of Saakashvili’s torture by Georgian authorities.

Saakashvili on Saturday sent a letter to Browder, an American businessman who worked in Moscow in the 1990s and 2000s, calling him to “help local Georgian groups to draw up a new Magnitsky List” against Georgian officials, following claims by his legal team and a part of the opposition on his alleged poisoning and maltreatment.

Browder replied to the letter by pledging his team would “prepare documents” on those responsible for the alleged poisoning and torture and make efforts to “make Western governments pay attention” to the topic. 

In his response, Khvichia said Saakashvili “needs to choose whether he is going to stay in Georgian politics and fight, or quit the domestic political arena”.

If we see that Saakashvili has decided to fight, then he will need to go to prison and continue the fight from there. But if Saakashvili decides to quit politics, then he should somehow give up. [...] But when you keep struggling and say you have been poisoned while in the prison hospital, this doesn't look credible”, the MP said.

The opposition lawmaker stressed the Georgian Government had committed “many mistakes”, but added creation of a new Magnitsky List based on allegations of Saakashvili’s torture in prison was “not something I believe in”. 

If we say that [the ruling] Georgian Dream [party] should be included in the List [for sanctions] because Saakashvili is being tortured, and, in the end, it turns out that Saakashvili was not tortured, all this will be some sort of [myth]”, he said.

“Saakashvili does not like prison. He becomes ill in captivity - therefore, his illness is not due to torture, but because [he] does not feel comfortable in prison”, the opposition MP claimed.

Saakashvili was arrested in Tbilisi in October 2021, after his clandestine return to Georgia, and is serving a six-year term for two separate abuse of power cases, with three other cases involving his term pending. He has been receiving treatment at the Vivamedi clinic since May 12.

His lawyers and family members have claimed the former president is in “urgent need” of treatment abroad, adding local professionals had been “unable” to make “accurate diagnosis and ensure relevant treatment” for months.