Prison changed for Mikhail Saakashvili – Mir – Kommersant

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Former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili said that he was tricked into transporting him from the Rustavi prison to the Gldanskaya prison, which is located in the suburbs of Tbilisi. Now he is being held there in a medical unit and continues a full hunger strike, refusing even to take medicine. Companions of the ex-president, meanwhile, are carrying out new mass actions. The situation may aggravate even more on Wednesday, when the Tbilisi City Court will begin the trial on one of the three criminal cases against Mikhail Saakashvili, which have not yet ended in a verdict.

About how Mikhail Saakashvili was transferred from the prison in the city of Rustavi to the Gldani prison, he himself told his lawyer Beka Basilai, as well as the public defender Nino Lomjaria, late on Monday evening, during a meeting with them in the ward of the prison hospital. According to the ex-president, in the afternoon, the head of the institution, Zurab Modebadze, came to his cell in the Rustavi prison and asked him to pack his things, promising to transfer them to the city clinical hospital, which the former president, as well as his lawyers, treating doctors and associates, had insisted on all this time. They referred to the deterioration of Mr. Saakashvili’s health after 40 days of hunger strike.

“Prisoner number one” believed the prison authorities, hurriedly packed up and got into the reanimobile, which was constantly on duty in the courtyard of the Rustavi prison. Penitentiary officials asked the former president to lie down and not look out of the windows “for security reasons.” But when the car stopped and the prisoner was asked to leave, he found that he was not in the Vivamedi city clinic, where prisoners from all over the country were periodically treated, but in the Gldani prison in one of the sleeping districts of Tbilisi.

Mikheil Saakashvili, according to his own story, refused to get out of the ambulance, but he was “dragged out by about ten people,” then thrown to the ground and dragged to the door of the prison hospital.

Mr. Saakashvili tried to resist, kicked the prison staff. They hit the prisoner in the neck several times.

After that, the head of the prison approached the prisoner and allegedly said: “Well, have you got a bird?”

At that time, the prisoners learned that the former head of state had been transferred to them, and, as follows from the story of Mikhail Saakashvili, they started shouting and threatening to kill not only the ex-president himself, but also his mother and children. It is reported that the prison obstruction was organized by local authorities, as well as murderers and rapists, some of whom have been in prison since the presidency of Mr. Saakashvili.

Gldani Prison No. 8 has been infamous since 2012. The then ruling pro-presidential United National Movement (UNM) party lost the parliamentary elections to billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream (GM). This happened after a few days before the national vote, a video of a prisoner being raped by a broom by one of the guards, as well as footage of the beating of convicts by the leadership of the penitentiary, got into the media.

When Mikheil Saakashvili was finally dragged into the ward of the prison hospital, he broke expensive equipment.

The Ministry of Justice, in a special statement, immediately made it clear: the Prosecutor General’s Office will consider the issue of initiating a sixth criminal case against the ex-president – under Art. 126 of the Criminal Code (violence against an official in the performance of his official duties).

Meanwhile, in the area of ​​the Gldani prison, hundreds of party members of the former president gathered. Other oppositionists blocked the building of the State Chancellery in Tbilisi, where the office of Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili is located, and also surrounded the building of the State Security Service (SGB) of Georgia. The protesters also temporarily blocked the entrance to the building of the Ministry of Justice, but soon dispersed at the call of the leaders, who invited supporters to gather in the evening on Rustaveli Avenue, near the parliament building.

UNM chairman Nikanor Melia promised the authorities: “We will make you tired, confess to the theft of the elections, confess that you are criminals, and call early parliamentary elections.” GM leaders do not remain in debt. The chairman of the ruling party, Irakli Kobakhidze, at a briefing on Tuesday, calling the opposition “provocateurs”, accused Nikanor Melia and his opposition colleagues of “preparing the poisoning of Member of Parliament Elena Khoshtaria”, who has been on hunger strike for the fourth day in the parliament building, thereby expressing solidarity with the former president …

Early on Tuesday morning, Mikheil Saakashvili met with lawyers and said that he was continuing a “death strike”, that is, he was refusing not only food, but also any medicine.

However, Mikheil Saakashvili’s lawyer, former head of the Ministry of Justice Nika Gvaramia “here and now” is more concerned not with the deterioration of his client’s health, but with his possible liquidation “by the hands of prisoners who are employed in the medical unit of the prison as orderlies and cleaners.”

Mikheil Saakashvili hopes not only for his associates in Georgia, but also for external support. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry expressed indignation at the fact that official Kiev “was not informed” about the transfer of its citizen from the Rustavi prison to the Gldanskaya prison, where he was reportedly “in danger”. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry demands treatment of Mr. Saakashvili in a civilian medical institution. However, the chairman of the ruling party in Georgia, Irakli Kobakhidze, said on Tuesday: the authorities are not going to fulfill this demand, since “the radical opposition is preparing to kidnap prisoner Saakashvili from the Vivamedi clinic.”

The situation may worsen even more on Wednesday, when, according to the statement of the lawyer Beka Basilai, the ex-president is to be transferred to the Tbilisi City Court, where the trial begins in one of three criminal cases that have not yet ended in a verdict. However, it is possible that, fearing mass disturbances, the court session will take place in the Gldani prison, and not in the Tbilisi city court.

George Dvali, Tbilisi

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