Sunday 19th December 2021
“Beaten and Humiliated”
Georgia’s ex-president is believed to be tortured in custody
The pro-Western Saakashvili has been in prison since the beginning of October – after a verdict for abuse of office. Doctors are now finding out that the former head of state is being mentally tortured and ill-treated. You are demanding adequate medical care.
The Georgian ex-president Mikhail Saakashvili was tortured in prison, according to doctors. A panel of independent doctors in Tbilisi said that his health has deteriorated significantly as a result of mental torture and ill-treatment in detention. Saakashvili broke off a hunger strike that had started 50 days earlier on November 20 after being transferred to a military hospital.
Saakashvili developed neurological diseases “as a result of torture, mistreatment, inadequate medical care and the long hunger strike,” said the doctors who examined him in custody. They diagnosed, among other things, the brain disease Wernicke encephalopathy and a post-traumatic stress disorder.
Psychiatrist Mariam Jischkariani said the complaints were due to psychological torture in detention. In order to avoid permanent damage, Saakashvili must receive adequate medical care. Instead, Saakashvili had been prescribed psychotropic drugs that he did not need and that could further damage his health.
Death threats and sleep deprivation
At the beginning of November, Saakashvili had declared that he had been mentally tortured in prison and that he had been ill-treated by guards. Specifically, he had complained of death threats, sleep deprivation and physical abuse. “I was tortured, inhumanly treated, beaten and humiliated,” he said.
Saakashvili returned to Georgia from Ukraine after eight years in exile in October and was immediately arrested. He is now on trial for abuse of power. Saakashvili rejects the accusation as politically motivated.
Saakashvili was President of Georgia from 2004 to 2013 after the largely peaceful Rose Revolution he led. During that time, the pro-Western politician implemented far-reaching economic reforms. His Georgian citizenship was revoked in 2015. In 2018 he was sentenced to six years imprisonment for abuse of office in absentia.