Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is the victim of "
torture
" by being denied access to the medical care he needs in prison, his lawyer accused Wednesday, April 20.
"
From the perspective of international law, the failure to provide adequate medical care to Saakashvili is a form of continued torture
," lawyer Nika Gvaramia told a hearing in a Tbilisi court.
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Mikheil Saakashvili, who led this Caucasian country from 2004 to 2013, was arrested and then imprisoned in October 2021 to serve a sentence for abuse of power which he describes as political.
The 54-year-old pro-Western former president has gone on two hunger strikes to protest his imprisonment and denounce the mistreatment he says he suffered in prison.
An independent board of doctors had pointed out in December that he still suffered from serious neurological disorders, a consequence, according to them, of ill-treatment in detention.
Medical assistance
He is currently on trial for entering Georgia illegally, a country he left to go into exile abroad, notably in Ukraine, before returning secretly last year.
He faces five years in prison.
In court on Wednesday, he appeared weakened.
During the hearing, he asked for medical assistance and had to leave the room briefly, supported by security guards.
Read alsoGeorgia: ex-president Saakashvili transferred to a military hospital
"
On Sunday I lost the use of my legs and couldn't walk
," he said, claiming to have lost 12 kilos in a few days.
Mikheil Saakashvili's arrest has exacerbated a political crisis in Georgia that erupted after parliamentary elections in 2020, narrowly won by the ruling Georgian Dream party and deemed by the opposition to be fraudulent.
