89 lawmakers of the Ukrainian Rada have addressed Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili and Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili over former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, now a citizen of Ukraine, Ukrainian media outlet Gordon reported on November 8.
The news comes as hunger-striking Saakashvili has been transferred to Gldani prison hospital in northeast Tbilisi in the evening of November 8, despite Saakashvili himself, his doctor’s and lawyers’ vocal opposition to the move, citing multiple risks and demanding his treatment in a civilian clinic instead.
In the letter, Ukrainian lawmakers are calling on Georgian leaders to urgently provide the former President with a high-level medical care, to ensure Saakashvili has unhindered access to consular and legal protection, as well as the immediate return of Saakashvili to Ukraine.
Expressing concerns over Saakashvili’s deteriorating health, the Ukrainian MPs have also called for his transfer to a civilian hospital.
According to the Gordon, lawmakers from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People Party, including David Arakhamia, Yelizaveta Yasko (Saakashvili’s partner), Elena Shulyak, Mikhail Radutsky, Nikita Poturaev; leader of Voice (Golos) party faction Yaroslav Zhelezniak, as well as several lawmakers from ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party have signed the missive.
Saakashvili, Georgian President in 2004-2013, left the country amidst the end of his second presidential term in 2013.
Saakashvili lost Georgian citizenship in December 2015, after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko granted Ukrainian citizenship earlier in May that year. Poroshenko stripped Saakashvili of his Ukrainian nationality in July 2017, which was granted to former Georgian President again by current President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in May 2019.
In May 2020, President Zelenskyy appointed Saakashvili as the chairman of the Executive Reform Committee of Ukraine.
The former Georgian President arrived in his native country covertly after eight years of exile on the night of September 28-29. He was arrested on October 1, on the eve of elections, few hours after he announced in Facebook videos he had return to the country. Saakashvili has been hunger striking since the arrest.
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