EU representative urges Georgia to provide medical care to detained Saakashvili

Peter Stano, the Lead Spokesperson for the European External Action Service (EEAS) which is the diplomatic service and combined foreign and defence ministry of the European Union, gave this statement on his official Twitter account on December 8.

"Georgia: The European Union follows attentively latest worrying reports about the deteriorating health of Mikheil Saakashvili. Georgian authorities are responsible for his health and well-being and have a duty to take all necessary measures for him to receive appropriate medical care", his post read.

Caliber.Az recalls, that numerous reports have been emerging in the past months on the deteriorating health of the imprisoned former President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili. He had been detained in October 2021 upon his return to the capital Tbilisi from Ukraine where he had been residing in exile due to criminal charges against him on abuse of power in his homeland Georgia.

Saakashvili had been acting as the third president of Georgia from 2004 to 2013, after which he relocated to Ukraine and was appointed the governor of the Odesa Oblast from 2015 to 2016 and received Ukrainian citizenship. After conflicts emerged between him and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, he was stripped of that and technically became stateless, as he had been previously stripped of his Georgian citizenship in 2015. He left Ukraine and relocated to several European citizens before returning to Ukraine in 2019 after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy restored his citizenship. He was a supporter of the Euro-Maidan movement in Ukraine and led his own political party in Ukraine, the Movement of New Forces.

Georgia: 🇪🇺 follows attentively latest worrying reports about the deteriorating health of Mikheil Saakashvili. 🇬🇪 authorities are responsible for his health & well-being and have a duty to take all necessary measures for him to receive appropriate medical care.

— Peter Stano (@ExtSpoxEU) December 8, 2022