The Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) appealed to the President of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili and the parliaments of EU member states with a request to pardon the third president of Georgia, a citizen of Ukraine Mikheil Saakashvili.
The MP from "Voice" party Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported this.
285 MPs voted for the corresponding bill No. 9491.
The MPs called on the President of Georgia Salome Zurabishvili to grant the Commissioner of the Human Rights Council Dmytro Lubinets access to Saakashvili and asked to pardon him, given his serious physical condition.
The Verkhovna Rada also appealed to the parliaments of the EU member states with a request to make appropriate decisions regarding the need to pardon Saakashvili.
- On July 3, the imprisoned ex-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili participated in a court hearing for the first time since February this year, connecting online from the Vivamed clinic. He looked extremely exhausted and thin.
- President Zelensky called on the Georgian authorities to hand over Mikheil Saakashvili to Ukraine for treatment, and on the partners to "not ignore this situation and save the person." He also instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to summon the Georgian ambassador to Ukraine, express his protest and offer to consult with the official Tbilisi.
- On July 4, the Georgian ambassador was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. He was offered to return to Tbilisi for consultations to resolve the situation around Saakashvili. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia "expressed deep concern" over Ukraineʼs proposal to return to the Georgian ambassador in Tbilisi for consultations, and called it "an extreme form of escalation of diplomatic relations."
- Saakashvili has been imprisoned since October 2021, and he has been in the hospital for the past few months. The politician asks for permission to go abroad for treatment. In Georgia, he was convicted in absentia in the cases of the murder of a banker and the beating of a deputy, and also appears in the case of the dispersal of an opposition rally on November 7, 2007 and the pogrom of the "Imedi" television company.