Ex-president Saakashvili claims to continue hunger strike even if hospitalised

Georgian former president Mikheil Saakashvili, who was arrested in Tbilisi on October 1 and has been on hunger strike since then, claims that he will not suspend hunger even if taken to hospital due to worsened health, Saakashvili’s personal doctor Nikoloz Kipshidze said earlier today. 

A council of doctors will evaluate Saakashvili’s health condition in Rustavi Prison No.12 in the afternoon today, per the request of Kipshidze. 

Kipshidze stated earlier this month that Saakashvili has a blood disease and hunger is never allowed for him. Saakashvili, who returned to Georgia after eight years in political exile ahead of Georgia’s municipal elections, says that ‘he is limited in forms of protest in prison,’ and that hunger strike is the only opportunity to say that he is a ‘personal prisoner of Russian president Vladimir Putin and pro-Russian Georgian Dream government.’ 

Saakashvili aimed to support his United National Movement opposition party to win the recent municipal elections and then replace the Georgian Dream government via snap parliamentary elections. 

Now he is a citizen of Ukraine and is holding an official post in the National Reforms Council of the country. He was convicted in absentia in Georgia back in 2018 for abuse of authority and was sentenced to six years in prison. 

Saakashvili has also been charged with four other offences which are still in courts.