Saakashvili asked Zelensky to grant him the status of a “civilian prisoner” in Russia’s war against Ukraine
Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said he seeks to obtain the status of a “civilian prisoner” in Russia’s war against Ukraine with the corresponding “legal consequences.” He said this wrotein an address to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Now I am forced to appeal because yesterday I was transferred from the prison hospital, where I was being treated for severe poisoning, back to the prison – to the staff who poisoned me. The fact of poisoning was established by American and German laboratories,”— the appeal states.
Saakashvili recalled that the poisoning occurred in March 2022, shortly after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. He claims that the persecution by the current Georgian authorities is being carried out at the behest of Moscow.
The politician claims that the materials of one of the new cases against him include statements by President Volodymyr Zelensky and OPU advisor Mykhailo Podoliak. In his opinion, this indicates that the Georgian authorities are “directly declaring Ukraine a hostile foreign state.”
In this context, he emphasized that “it is absolutely obvious that my persecution and my fate are connected with the war”:
“I want to ask you, just like in 2019, when you returned my illegally taken citizenship, please include me, as the former head of the Odessa Regional State Administration, as the head of the executive committee of the National Reform Council, who is illegally held by the pro-Russian regime of Georgia, in the list of civilian prisoners of this war with the corresponding legal consequences. I know that Ukrainians do not abandon their own, and I am counting on you.”
As a reminder, on November 12, the Georgian Penitentiary Service reported that Saakashvili was discharged from the Tbilisi Vivamed clinic, where he had been receiving treatment since 2022, and returned to prison to continue serving his sentence. According to previously issued sentences, he is to remain in prison until April 1, 2034.
