"Sometimes unexpected things happen. There is some hope that does not disappear. I hope for a miracle,"
says Gioli Alasnia, the mother of former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili.
Alessnia.
"Seeing him wither every day", photo: from YouTube
After secretly returning to Georgia, he was arrested and imprisoned, but his condition has been deteriorating for months, and worse - an independent examination ordered by his lawyers determined: the former president was poisoned with heavy metals.
Saakashvili appears before the court on December 22.
"Lying in one position", photo: IPA
In a telephone interview from Tbilisi, Prof. Alasania says that her son, the former president, is dying in front of her eyes, and the authorities are not taking care of him and are not ready to release him for proper treatment outside of Georgia.
"I see him twice a day," says Alasnia, the president of the University of Georgia and a noted historian.
"He doesn't stand on his feet, and in fact lies all the time in the same position. His skin color is shocking, such greenish. He loses weight all the time. He is unable to eat, even when he wants to."
2005: Saakashvili hosts George Bush Jr., the first US president to visit Georgia. "Saakashvili Pushed West", Photo: GettyImages
Reminder: Saakashvili was elected president of Georgia in 2004 after the "Rose Revolution".
He carried out comprehensive reforms in government, the economy and education, fought the corruption that is present everywhere (during his time, Georgia improved in the corruption index by 82 places), and perhaps above all promoted an agenda of rapprochement with the West, including Georgia's entry into NATO. Following the Russian invasion of Georgia in -2008, became the personal enemy of Vladimir Putin, who promised to "hang him by the testicles".
With Putin in St. Petersburg in 2007.
became bitter enemies,
After losing the elections in 2012, Saakashvili fled to Ukraine, where he managed to become the governor of the Odesa region, clash with the then president Poroshenko, and be appointed director of the National Reform Committee.
In October 2021, he secretly returned - inside a creamery - to Georgia, hoping to arouse the supporters of his party, the "United National Movement" in the municipal elections, but was arrested and transferred to prison to serve the six years of imprisonment he was sentenced to in his absence, under the pretext that as president he abused his power.
According to his supporters, this is political persecution.
Since his arrest, Saakashvili has gone on hunger strike several times to protest the conditions of his imprisonment, and was finally transferred to a clinic, where he is actually detained.
Despite the move, Saakashvili's condition continued to deteriorate, until in October his American attorney, Massimo D'Angelo, visited him in the company of American doctors who took samples of his hair and nails, and even conducted a biopsy.
"We sent the samples to a laboratory in the US and there traces of mercury and arsenic were discovered in his body," attorney D'Angelo says in a phone call from New York, "he suffers from convulsions, and according to the doctors accompanying him, this is related to poisoning and brain damage. Saakashvili's condition Crying badly, and he needs urgent detoxification."
If Saakashvili was poisoned, who did it and how?
"We have no solid information on the matter. He was held in various facilities in Georgia. What we also know is that the ruling 'Georgian Dream' party and its architect, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia, are very pro-Russian. If we look at past cases, the poison is injected into food or to the prisoner's drink, and then is slowly released into the body, causing symptoms that we are now seeing in the former president."
The defense team demands that the prison term be postponed to allow Saakashvili to go for life-saving treatment abroad. Their demand even received support in the form of a statement by the European Parliament.
The authorities in Tbilisi, for their part, claim that they offered Saakashvili a toxicological test, but he refused.
The chairman of the "Georgian Dream", Irakli Kobhidze, claimed that the release "will damage the stability of Georgia" and added that Saakashvili is simply "impersonating and unprofessional". "A nurse is sitting next to him, taking his temperature, and it's constantly high.
How can you pretend?
Meanwhile, he suffers from convulsions.
Last Thursday he lost consciousness when he tried to walk to the bathroom and injured his head.
Only two steps, but he had a hard time doing them.
At any moment this could end very badly because the toxins need to be removed, but due to his multiple diagnoses, it is impossible to do this in Georgia, let alone in prison conditions" (a similar conclusion was reached by experts from a non-governmental organization who also examined Saakashvili's medical condition; D.B.) .
Why do you think he is not allowed to go out for treatment?
"This is political revenge, they are trying to get rid of him. Misha was punished for trying to build a successful government in the post-Soviet space, he devoted all his energy to getting closer to the West. In 2008 there was a Russian invasion, and even then he did not give up and maintained a sovereign Georgia, but also He predicted that the war is just the beginning. Putin threatened to hang him from a certain place, and essentially, Russia never left here."
In recent days, demonstrations have been held around the world in front of Georgian embassies demanding the release of Saakashvili.
Ukrainian President Zelensky went to Tbilisi to receive him.
Similar calls were also made by the president of Moldova, Maya Sandu, and the ambassadors of the European Union and the United States in Tbilisi.
If you could contact the authorities, what would you tell them?
"I don't think they will listen to me," Alasanya sighs, "They have all the information. My son is withering and I see it every day."
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