Opponent and imprisoned former president Mikheil Saakashvili, who is serving a prison term in hospital, needs treatment abroad, doctors in contact with his lawyers said, saying his life was in danger, AFP reported, Agerpres reported.

The 54-year-old former leader was hospitalized last year after his first 50-day hunger strike, launched to protest his imprisonment for “abuse of power”, a decision which human rights NGOs said was politically motivated.

Since then, he has gone on hunger strike several times to protest his arrest, the latest of which lasted less than a day last week.

A group of American doctors who examined Saakashvili at the request of his lawyers told AFP that he was suffering from complications due to the prison conditions and that his life was in danger.

“It is more than clear that he was subjected to poor treatment and torture,” one of the doctors, James Coby, said in a written statement to AFP.

Saakashvili’s life “is in immediate danger until he is transferred to a western medical center for emergency care,” he added.

According to him, the ex-president needs four orthopedic operations, which cannot be done in Georgia.

Another doctor, Eric Goldsmith, for his part, says that Saakashvili also suffers from neurological problems, which is a “serious handicap”.

At the same time, according to Dr. Stuart Finkel, Saakashvili “suffers from a number of gastrointestinal diseases,” and toxicologist David Smith claims that the former president “poisoned” with heavy metals in prison and needs “immediate transfer to a medical facility.” center outside Georgia”.

On the other hand, the Georgian authorities assure that Saakashvili receives all necessary care.

Leading Georgia from 2004 to 2013, Mikheil Saakashvili was president during the war with Russia in the summer of 2008, which resulted in Georgia’s swift defeat. He spent eight years in exile, mostly in the USA and Ukraine, where his career got a new lease of life.

After secretly returning to Georgia ahead of local elections in early October 2021, Saakashvili was immediately arrested to serve a six-year prison sentence for “abuse of power,” a sentence handed down in absentia in 2018.