Ukraine decries ‘horrifying’ photos of jailed ex-president

Ukrainian officials have accused Tbilisi of torturing Georgia’s incarcerated ex-president, Mikheil Saakashvili, after footage purporting to show a virtual court appearance by the former leader surfaced on social media.

Video footage and still photos from the hearing were posted on Monday, showing a graying Saakashvili pulling up his shirt to show his emaciated state. The former president, who was detained in October 2021 to serve a combined six years in prison for abuse of power and covering up evidence about a banker’s murder, was transferred to a hospital in Tbilisi last year because of poor health.

The pro-Western Saakashvili holds a Ukrainian passport and served a one-year stint as the governor of Odessa Region, while living in exile from Georgia, before resigning in 2016. Current Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has refused requests by Kiev to release Saakashvili for medical treatment in Ukraine.

Mikhail Podoliak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, reacted to the new photos of Saakashvili by accusing Georgia of torturing its former head of state “slowly and cynically” to curry favor with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He claimed that the Tbilisi government was ruining its “European prospects” and making Georgia “synonymous with cannibalism.”

Saakashvili, 55, has gone on hunger strikes since his arrest. His weight reportedly dropped from 115kg (254 pounds) in October 2021 to 74kg last December. He claimed earlier this year that he had been poisoned with high-density metals by “Russian agents” while in custody.

The Georgian government has accused Saakashvili of faking the severity of his illness and released footage of the inmate last December, showing his “offensive and aggressive behavior” toward hospital staffers. “This footage clearly shows that Mikheil Saakashvili is dissembling in order to obstruct the enforcement of justice and mislead the public and international partners,” the Georgian Special Penitentiary Service said at the time. Georgian medics have blamed his dramatic weight loss on his refusals to eat.

Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, called the latest footage of Saakashvili “horrifying.” He added: “President of Georgia Salome Zourabichvili refuses to pardon Saakashvili. He is obviously in a bad state and needs medical treatment.”

Georgia has faced international pressure to join in US-led sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine conflict. Air traffic between Georgia and Russia resumed in May under a decree signed by Putin.

Saakashvili was president from 2004 to 2013, and launched an attack against the breakaway republic of South Ossetia in August 2008. The attack killed a number of Russian peacekeepers in the region, triggering a five-day conflict between Tbilisi and Moscow.