TBILISI, July 19. /TASS/. The Georgian justice ministry sees no possibility of deferring the sentence of former President Mikhail Saakashvili or releasing him from custody at this point, Justice Minister Rati Bregadze told Channel One of Georgia’s Public Television.

"At this point, it is not within our sphere of competence to release this man from custody or to defer his sentence," Bregadze said, when asked whether Saakashvili can be swapped for any criminal wanted by Georgia and detained in Ukraine.

He confirmed that the Georgian judicial authorities rule out any form of alternative sentence for Sakashvili, including by allowing him to serve it in Ukraine under Kiev’s guarantees.

Saakashvili left Georgia in 2013. Four criminal cases were opened against him in the country subsequently. In two of them he was sentenced to three and six years in absentia. In October 2021, Saakashvili secretly arrived in Georgia, but was detained. In May 2022, he was taken to the private Tbilisi clinic Vivamed as his health condition deteriorated, and he remains there to this day. The Georgian government believes that Saakashvili is feigning ill health in order to be released from detention.

Ukrainian authorities and European politicians have repeatedly urged the Georgian authorities to release Saakashvili on medical parole. There have also been calls to the country’s incumbent President Salome Zurabishvili to pardon the former head of state.