Jailed Georgia ex-leader Mikheil Saakashvili ‘tortured’ in custody, doctors say
- An independent council of doctors said Saakashvili has developed serious neurological conditions as a result of torture and ill-treatment in custody
- Saakashvili had refused food for 50 days to protest against his jailing on an abuse of office conviction he has denounced as politically motivated
Georgia’s jailed opposition leader and ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili has developed serious neurological conditions as a result of torture and ill-treatment in custody, an independent council of doctors said Saturday.
Saakashvili had refused food for 50 days to protest against his jailing on an abuse of office conviction he has denounced as politically motivated.
The 53-year-old pro-Western reformer called off his hunger strike after he was placed – in a critical condition – in a military hospital in Georgia’s eastern city of Gori.
Saakashvili has developed a number of neurological diseases “as a result of torture, ill-treatment, inadequate medical care, and a prolonged hunger-strike”, said the doctors, who had examined him in custody.
Their statement said he had been diagnosed with the potentially life-threatening brain disease Wernicke encephalopathy and with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), among other conditions.
One of the doctors, psychiatrist Mariam Jishkariani, told Agence France-Presse that the conditions that “resulted from Saakashvili’s psychological torture in prison, could lead to his incapacitation if he is not given a proper medical care”.
Earlier in November, Saakashvili said he was subjected to psychological torture that included death threats, sleep deprivation, and physical abuse.