Due to his health, Saakashvili was not present either at the meeting or at the announcement of the decision.

The Tbilisi City Court today refused to postpone the execution of the sentence in the case of the former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili.

Saakashvili’s lawyers appealed to the court with a request for a postponement or exemption from the punishment of the former president of Georgia. Judge Giorgiy Arevadze considered this petition for about two months, RFE/RL reports.

The judge’s decision caused dissatisfaction among the relatives and supporters of the former president of Georgia. The representatives of the penitentiary service did not agree with the request of Saakashvili’s lawyers. According to the representative of the service, lawyer Niki Abramishvili, the opinion submitted to the court did not contain reliable information about the severity of the illness of the convict Mikheil Saakashvili and could not be a reason for delaying the sentence.

Considering his health, Mikheil Saakashvili was neither present at the meeting nor at the announcement of the decision, even remotely.

Mikheil Saakashvili’s conclusion

On October 1, 2021, Saakashvili was detained in Georgia when he returned to his homeland for the first time in eight years on the eve of municipal elections. He is involved in several criminal cases, for one of which he was sentenced in absentia to six years in prison. Saakashvili himself considers the charges brought against him to be political persecution.

Immediately after his detention, Saakashvili announced a hunger strike, which he agreed to end on November 19, 2021. After a long hunger strike, the politician was in a serious condition, so he was transferred from the Rustavsk prison to the military hospital in Gori. The politician’s health continues to deteriorate. In November, it became known that he is suffering from tuberculosis, and the 55-year-old politician is developing dementia. His lawyers also reported that traces of deadly poison were found in Saakashvili. He is rapidly losing weight. His press secretary Darya Chyzh reported that at the beginning of the trials he weighed 120 kg, now – 69. Footage from the court session appeared recently, showing how much the politician has lost weight.

The lawyers are seeking to transfer him to another country for treatment and postpone the sentence.

On February 6, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine appealed to Georgia and the international community regarding the need to immediately transfer Saakashvili for treatment abroad. Ukraine is also asking to provide access to Saakashvili, the representative of the Verkhovna Rada on human rights, Dmytro Lubinets. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine calls on the Georgian authorities to immediately stop abusing Saakashvili and hand him over to Ukraine.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the Georgian authorities “publicly torture and kill” Saakashvili.