Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was returned to prison on Wednesday after spending a prolonged period in a private hospital due to health issues following a 50-day hunger strike.
Saakashvili, who is serving a 12-and-a-half-year prison sentence, had been receiving treatment at a private hospital in Tbilisi since May 2022. Georgian prison authorities stated that his health condition was now “adequate,” making further hospitalisation unnecessary.
Saakashvili led Georgia from 2004 to 2013. In 2018, he was sentenced in absentia to six years in prison for abuse of power.
The former president was arrested in 2021 after spending years in exile, and, in March 2023, he was convicted on additional charges of embezzlement and of illegally crossing the border when he returned to Georgia in 2021.
Human rights organisations and Saakashvili himself have denounced the legal actions against him, alleging that they are politically motivated.
