Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili announced Wednesday the suspension of his third hunger strike just hours after announcing its start after a court in Tbilisi, the country’s capital, refused to allow his presence in court during the hearing to decide whether or not to suspend the sentence imposed against him.
The decision, he explained, was taken after members of the European Parliament sent him a message asking him to abandon the strike to prevent the authorities from «accusing him of damaging his own health».
Thus, he has moved that, in addition, the MEPs have promised to «mobilize all necessary diplomatic efforts to ensure the minimum protection of his rights,» as reported by the Civil news portal. «I am not sick because I do not eat, I am sick because I have been poisoned,» he stressed.
Hours earlier, after announcing the hunger strike, he has stated that «his most basic right to attend his own trial has been neglected.» «This is a violation of all Georgian and international norms, so I am forced to resort to an extreme form of protest, a hunger strike,» he said in a letter.
«I am aware of all the risks given my current state of health, but I will be on hunger strike until I have solid guarantees to at least include a video link to my trial. There is a limit to all mockery and humiliation,» he insisted, according to the daily ‘Rezonansi’.
This is the third time Saakashvili has resorted to hunger strike as a form of pressure, after those of October 2021 — when he was detained after eight years in exile — and February 2022.
Saakashvili was sentenced to three years in prison in connection with the murder of banker Sandro Girgvliani and another six years for being behind the beating of MP Valeri Gelashvili in 2005. He is also under investigation for alleged abuse of power during anti-government protests in 2007.
Saakashvili’s relatives and defense are insisting that the Georgian authorities allow his transfer abroad so that he can be treated for his ailments, especially after his lawyer, Shalva Khachapuridze, denounced a few weeks ago that traces of arsenic had been found in a toxicological analysis.
