TBILISI – The Ukrainian side has already drafted an address to Georgia demanding that former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili be handed over to Ukraine, Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada member Oleksandr Kovalchuk said.
“According to our information, the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky, and the Verkhovna Rada already have the drafted text,” Kovalchuk told journalists on Oct. 29 following a meeting of a group of Ukrainian parliamentarians with Saakashvili at a jail in the city of Rustavi, Georgia.
According to him, Saakashvili, who is continuing his hunger strike in jail, is in critical condition and has little strength left.
“At the same time, he has an inner strength that enables him to continue fighting,” the parliamentarian said.
Saakashvili is not allowed to make calls in prison and is deprived of his right to go for a walk, Kovalchuk said.
“The most important thing is that we saw him. We saw that everything is bad. He needs to be in a normal hospital. He must return to Ukraine as soon as possible,” he said.
Ukrainian parliamentarian Yulia Klymenko also told journalists that Saakashvili needs to be transferred to “a normal hospital.”
She expressed regret that the prison administration did not allow Saakashvili to give a letter to the Ukrainian parliamentarians who came to visit him.
“We brought him a book about how the Ukrainians created their history,” Klymenko said.
Saakashvili’s girlfriend, Verkhovna Rada member Yelizaveta Yasko, also told journalists she is concerned about his health.
“Saakashvili is in critical condition, all his rights are being violated,” he said.
“Mikheil Saakashvili said that his life is in the hands of the Georgian people now. The continuation of relations between Georgia and Ukraine depends on Georgia now. We want his health to be protected first and for him to stay in a hospital and be protected. Unfortunately, it is not happening now,” Yasko said.
Saakashvili, former Georgian president and currently a citizen of Ukraine, secretly arrived in Georgia from Ukraine on Sept. 29. He was detained in Tbilisi on October 1 and is currently being held in a Rustavi prison.
Georgia earlier declared Saakashvili wanted as a person convicted in absentia in several criminal cases and treated as a suspect in some others. The Georgian authorities warned repeatedly that he would be detained immediately after he crossed the border. Saakashvili has described his detention as unlawful and the charges brought against him as falsified.
