TBILISI, November 19. /TASS/. The decision to transfer Georgia’s former President Mikhail Saakashvili from the clinic back to prison cannot be politically motivated, it will be based on doctors’ recommendations, Georgian Justice Minister Rati Bregadze said on Sunday.

"A convict in Georgia serves his or her term in a penitentiary establishment and can stay in a hospital for as long as it takes for him or her to recover. As soon as we have doctors’ recommendation, we will transfer him (Saakashvili - TASS) [to prison], since we don’t’ make decisions on this issue in a different way. Any politically motivated decision is excluded," he said in an interview with the Imedi television channel.

According to the minister, Saakashvili’s health has improved.

Four criminal cases were launched against Saakashvili in Georgia after he left the country in 2013. He was sentenced in absentia to three and six years in prison in two of the four cases. In October 2021, Saakashvili secretly arrived in Georgia but was arrested anyway. In May 2022, he was taken to the Vivamed private clinic in Tbilisi, where he has been staying ever since.