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Former Georgian President Saakashvili goes on hunger strike — lawyer

The court was scheduled to discuss letting the former president walk free due to his health condition

TBILISI, December 14. /TASS/. Georgia’s former President Mikhail Saakashvili went on a hunger strike after the Georgian penitentiary service denied him a chance to attend his court hearing by video link, his defense lawyer Shalva Khachapuridze said on Wednesday.

"Today, I have been denied the most basic right: to attend my own trial. It’s a violation of all Georgian and international rights. So I have to resort to an extreme form of protest, a hunger strike. Certainly, I realize all the risks, given my health condition now, but I won’t take food until I get firm guarantees of joining the trial, at least by video link. All ridicule and humiliation has a limit," Saakashvili said in a letter that was read out by his lawyer, who had visited the former president at a clinic.

Georgia penitentiary service spokesman Nikoloz Abramishvili said Saakashvili was supposed to join the court hearing virtually on Wednesday, but the clinic where he’s being treated didn’t have the required technical means. The court was scheduled to discuss letting the former president walk free due to his health condition. The hearing was adjourned to December 22.

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