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Poland offers medical treatment to jailed Georgian former president

12.02.2023 12:35
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that former Georgian head of state, Mikheil Saakashvili, could receive medical treatment in Poland.
Mikheil Saakashvili has been in prison hospital since 8 November.
Mikheil Saakashvili has been in prison hospital since 8 November.Robert Gadziński/FORUM

Saakashvili, who was president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, is currently serving a six-year sentence for exceeding official powers.

During his time in prison, Saakashvili has gone on several hunger strikes, which significantly affected his health, causing him to lose 40% of his body weight.

Georgian authorities, however, claim that Saakashvili is receiving proper care at a hospital in Tbilisi and speculate that he is exaggerating the severity of his condition in an attempt to secure an early release or a deterrence of his sentence.

Meanwhile, the former president’s associates say his sentence was politically motivated and that he was poisoned.

In response to the ongoing dispute, Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki has offered to provide medical treatment to Saakashvili in Poland.

“Poland has proposed to the Georgian government that Mikheil Saakashvili could be treated in Poland,” Morawiecki said at a recent EU summit in Brussels.

Saakashvili had a close relationship with the late Polish President Lech Kaczyński, the twin brother of the current ruling party’s leader Jarosław Kaczyński.

Before his untimely death in the 2010 plane crash in Smolensk, Lech Kaczyński extended his support to Georgia amid the country’s conflict with Russia in 2008.

(pjm)

Source: Reuters