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Saakashvili refuses to participate in trial via video link
TBILISI. Nov 16 (Interfax) – The trial in the Tbilisi City Court of former President Mikheil Saakashvili’s case on illegally crossing Georgia’s state border began on Tuesday almost an hour late, the Georgian media reported.
Technical equipment was being installed at the prison hospital so that the former president could take part in the trial remotely, but Saakashvili refused to take part in the trial in that format.
Saakashvili’s lawyers filed a petition for the admission of journalists to the trial, but Judge David Kurtanidze refused.
Lawyers also protested against the refusal of the penitentiary service to take Saakashvili from the prison hospital to the courtroom.
The defense team also demanded that the cases of the four Georgian citizens detained on charges of helping Saakashvili cross the Georgian border be merged into one case.
The trial is continuing in camera.
Meanwhile, an appeal from Saakashvili to the international community was posted on his social media page on Tuesday to "raise your voice against the lawlessness" being carried out by the Georgian authorities.
"I protest against infringement of my fundamental rights and call on all for whom freedom is important to raise their voices against lawlessness in a country that was once recognized as a beacon of democracy," Saakashvili said in the statement.
According to Saakashvili, he is "a prisoner of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and his oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili."
Saakashvili notes that tens of thousands protest daily against "authoritarian rule" in Georgia, and he is not allowed to participate in his trials.
The appearance of this appeal on Saakashvili’s social media page has not yet been explained by his lawyers. Saakashvili has no access to the Internet at the prison hospital.
Saakashvili, a citizen of Ukraine, secretly arrived in Georgia on September 29. On October 1, he was detained in Tbilisi, after which he was placed in a prison in the city of Rustavi, where he went on hunger strike. On November 8, he was transferred from the Rustavi prison to a prison hospital in the Gldani district of Tbilisi without the consent of his relatives and lawyers.
Saakashvili has been identified as a defendant in several criminal cases in Georgia. Saakashvili views his detention as illegal and the charges brought against him as fabricated.
