(ANSA) - MOSCOW, 29 NOV - "I was tortured, inhumanly treated, beaten and humiliated" in detention: the opposition leader and former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili said, speaking in English during a trial in Tbilisi, which sees him accused of being accused of office abuse: this was reported by AFP and Radio Liberty, stating that the former leader of the Rose Revolution, arrested on October 1st, defined his problems with justice as "politically motivated".
"Everyone knows I shouldn't be in prison because all the charges against me are fabricated and politically motivated," Saakashvili told the judges.
According to Radio Liberty, there have been scuffles between the police and supporters of the politician. The AFP reports that over a thousand supporters of the former president and founder of the opposition party United National Movement have demonstrated near the court waving Georgian and European flags and chanting the name of the former Georgian head of state.
According to opposition TV Mtavari, also shot by AFP, the police stopped dozens of demonstrators after they blocked traffic in a street in the area.
Saakashvili was on hunger strike for 50 days to protest his arrest on October 1, shortly after his return to Georgia on the eve of local elections.
According to the AFP, the politician lost about 20 kilos during the fast and today he looked pale in the courtroom.
Saakashvili ended his hunger strike on November 19 after authorities agreed to transfer him from a prison clinic to a military hospital.
(HANDLE).
