Navalny calls for Saakashvili’s release from prison for medical treatment

From prison, Alexey Navalny called on the authorities of Georgia to release politician and former president Mikheil Saakashvili from prison for medical treatment. Navalny’s team published the message on Navalny’s social media channels.

The Russian politician noted that he doesn’t know Saakashvili or his team personally, and also has a “weak grasp on Georgian politics,” but that he decided to speak out “as a human being and a Christian.”

Navalny says that everyone suffers from the current situation: Saakashvili and his family, the country of Georgia, and even the former president’s political opponents, who get “nothing good from this.”

I believe in a happy European future for Georgia. […] But the imprisonment and torture of a former president is awful and heartless. It affects E.U. candidacy, it affects development, it decreases the chances of a normal future. It lowers morale and fills the country with malice.

Navalny expressed the belief that persecuting Saakashvili is a dead end, with “everyone [participating] wanting to save face.” The authorities, Navalny believes, “should be more merciful than their opponents.”

Saakashvili is very ill, and all the talk that he’s faking is nonsense. Believe me, prison will suck the health out of anyone very fast. Allowing him to seek treatment with a suspended sentence, or doing something else like that, which would allow all parties to follow the law and save face, would be the most proper thing.

It’s Holy Week now, and then it will be Easter. It’s a good time for a difficult, but merciful, action for the good of the country and a step toward the nation’s reconciliation.

I call on the authorities of Georgia and all opponents of Mikheil Saakashvili to take this step in the spirit of Christian mercy and peacemaking.

Mikheil Saakashvili has been in prison since 2021, when he returned to Georgia from Kyiv. Since then, his health has deteriorated seriously. The European Parliament has called for his release, and Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has demanded his return to Kyiv.