TBILISI, Georgia — Georgia’s jailed ex-president, Mikheil Saakashvili, had been “poisoned” in custody by heavy metals and dangers dying with out correct therapy, based on a medical report distributed on Monday by his authorized crew.
The 54-year-old was transferred to hospital final yr after a starvation strike that he maintained for 50 days to protest at his jailing, which rights teams have denounced as politically motivated.
In a report distributed by Saakashvili’s authorized crew, US-based toxicologist David Smith mentioned “testing has revealed the presence of heavy metals” in Saakashvili’s physique and the pathological signs he shows “are the result of heavy metal poisoning.”
“To a reasonable degree of medical certainty” the poisonous brokers, together with mercury and arsenic, had been launched after Saakashvili was jailed, Smith mentioned.
The authors of the report, dated November 28, additionally mentioned Saakashvili was being administered damaging treatment with out correct oversight.
The “increased risk of mortality is imminent” with out sufficient therapy, “which appears to have been denied or unavailable” in Georgia, Smith added.
Georgian authorities have insisted that Saakshvili is being given sufficient medical care.
Another impartial physician, Mariam Jishkariani, who headed a council of medics which had examined Saakashvili, instructed AFP on Monday he has been “diagnosed with brain damage and neuro-intoxication.”
“He is suffering from a number of serious illnesses, which are incompatible with his confinement, according to Georgian law.”
Tengiz Tsuladze, a physician from a council of medics arrange by Georgia’s rights ombudsperson, mentioned Saakashvili’s “has lost more than 40 kilograms [88 pounds] since his detention.”
“Georgia’s medical system has apparently exhausted all the available means for Saakashvili’s treatment,” he instructed the impartial Formula TV station on Sunday.
Saakashvili, the founding father of Georgia’s principal opposition pressure and president of the small Caucasian nation from 2004 to 2013, was convicted in absentia on expenses of abuse of workplace and sentenced to 6 years in jail in 2018.
The pro-Western reformer was imprisoned in October 2021, days after secretly getting back from exile in Ukraine.
He has denounced his conviction as politically motivated.
In October, the Council of Europe rights watchdog referred to as for the “release of political prisoners opposed to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin in the Russian Federation and other countries, including Mikheil Saakashvili.”
Amnesty International has branded his therapy as “apparent political revenge.” — Agence France-Presse
