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Georgian ex-president taken to military hospital in Gori

A mobile intensive care unit with Saakashvili on board left a prison hospital in Tbilisi late on Friday

Mikhail Saakashvili Georgian Interior Ministry Press Service via AP

Mikhail Saakashvili

© Georgian Interior Ministry Press Service via AP

TBILISI, November 20. /TASS/. Former Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili was taken to a military hospital in the eastern city of Gori early on Saturday, according to a live broadcast by Pirveli TV.

A mobile intensive care unit with Saakashvili on board left a prison hospital in Tbilisi late on Friday, heading to a military hospital in the eastern Georgian city of Gori some 90km away from the capital. Saakashvili was accompanied by his personal physician Nikoloz Kipshidze, several prison hospital doctors and his mother Giuli Alasania. The mobile ICU traveled with a convoy of vehicles of the Interior Ministry and the Special Penitentiary Service of the Justice Ministry.

The situation near the hospital is calm. The building is cordoned off by the police. At present, Saakashvili’s lawyers and physician are waiting for a permission to meet with him and assess his conditions.

His lawyer Nika Gvaramia said on Friday that the ex-leader had given his consent to being transferred to the Gori military hospital and would end the hunger strike that he had declared more than a month ago once he arrives there.

During a meeting with his attorney on Thursday, Saakashvili fainted and fell over. A prison hospital doctor said later that his condition had been stabilized. However, the former president remained in an intensive care ward.

Saakashvili was detained in Georgia on October 1 after his return to the country shortly ahead of the first round of municipal elections. He was kept in prison in the city of Rustavi, where he went on a hunger strike as he claims to be a political prisoner. On November 8, Georgia’s Justice Ministry transferred the politician to a prison hospital on the outskirts of Tbilisi, but Saakashvili and his lawyers opposed it firmly and insisted that he should go to a private hospital.

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