(Tbilisi) The imprisoned ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili suffers from severe neurological disorders resulting from torture and other ill-treatment inflicted in detention and requiring appropriate care, affirmed an independent council of doctors Saturday.
Arrested on 1er October On his return from eight years of exile in Ukraine, Mr. Saakashvili refused to eat for 50 days in protest against his imprisonment for a conviction for abuse of power, the political nature of which he denounces.
At 53, this pro-Western reformer, at the head of his country from 2004 to 2013, began to eat again after being transferred on November 20 to a military hospital in Gori (east), following concerns expressed by doctors who said his life was in danger.
He developed a number of neurological pathologies which are “the result of torture, ill-treatment, inadequate medical treatment and a prolonged hunger strike,” concluded the group of doctors who went to examine him in detention.
More specifically, we can read in their press release that they notably diagnosed Wernicke’s encephalopathy, potentially fatal, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
One of the doctors, psychiatrist Mariam Jichkariani, told AFP that his condition, “which results from the psychological torture Saakashvili suffered in prison, could lead to disability if he did not receive appropriate medical treatment” .
At the end of November, when he appeared before a court in the capital Tbilisi, he himself denounced the psychological torture suffered in detention, among other sleep deprivation and threats.
“Everyone knows that I should not be in prison, because all the charges against me are trumped up and respond to political considerations,” he said, his face pale.
“I was tortured, I was treated in an inhuman manner, beaten and humiliated” in detention, he said. He lost about 20 kilograms during his hunger strike.
For Amnesty International, the treatment inflicted on the former president is “not only selective justice, but apparently political revenge”.
The arrest of this prominent opposition figure has exacerbated the political crisis resulting from last year’s legislative elections, elections marred by opposition according to fraud, and also triggered the largest anti-government protests in ten years.
Human rights activists accuse the Georgian government of using criminal prosecution to punish political opponents and critical media.
Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili recently stirred up controversy when he said the government had no choice but to arrest Saakashvili for refusing to quit political life.