Minister of Justice says 'radical opposition' is using Saakashvili's health condition political benefits
By Liza Mchedlidze
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
According to the Minister of Justice of Georgia, Rati Bregadze, the government is doing its best to fully protect the health of the former president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
According to Bregadze, Saakashvili is under the supervision of doctors at the Vivamed clinic. The Minister of Justice spoke about the steps taken by the state regarding Mikheil Saakashvili's health and stated that he was receiving appropriate medical services.
"It is better for the doctors to speak. For my part, I can say that the government is doing its best to ensure that his right to health is fully protected, he has always received appropriate medical services from the government, be it in the penitentiary institution, in the treatment penitentiary institution number 18, and also in Gori Military Hospital.
As you know, he was in the 12th penitentiary institution, where he was prescribed medical treatment, however, by his own decision, he did not carry out treatment fully. In order to rule out the risk of further complications, he was transferred to the "Vivamed" clinic and is under the supervision of doctors.
The state is doing its best both for this particular convicted person and for all other persons who are in penitentiary institutions, this will continue in the future as well," said Bregadze.
According to him, part of the 'radical opposition' is trying to use Saakashvili's health condition for their own political benefits.
"Of course, part of the radical opposition is trying to use this for a political agenda. We also saw the lawyer's statement, where he said that the report would be confidential, which would be submitted to the court, and no one would have access to it. However, we see politicians who are ''know-it-all'' and talk about the health condition of the convicted Mikheil Saakashvili, making their own assessments, which of course is not correct, nor completely moral and ethical, when these people try to use this specific information for their own political purposes.
It can be safely said that until now there has been little interest in health protection. A concrete example of this is when Mikheil Saakashvili announced a hunger strike, instead of calling for an end to the hunger strike, on certain TV channels they directly called that the end of the hunger strike would be the price of political suicide, and it should not be done under any circumstances, and they tried to equate it with a heroic act, which was totally unacceptable.
Anyone who doesn't call on a starving person to stop their hunger strike is very weak in morals, and I really doubt that anyone who tells a starving person to go on a hunger strike is genuinely interested in their health and not trying to use it for political purposes. Of course, there is morality in politics, there are red lines and everyone must follow them, however, unfortunately, in very many cases, similar steps are taken and these red lines, human and moral, are violated," said Bregadze.
