Concerns of Tuberculosis and Dementia for Saakashvili, Lawyer Claims

The former President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, is reportedly suspected of having tuberculosis and dementia, according to Shalva Khachapuridze, a lawyer representing him. This information was relayed to the Georgian news agency InterPressNews on November 8.

"These are hypothetical diagnoses by the doctors, and they are not yet final; they are only assumptions, just like the other 34 potential diseases attributed to Mikheil Saakashvili," the lawyer stated.

Saakashvili secretly returned to Georgia on September 29 of last year. He was arrested in Tbilisi on October 1 of the same year and subsequently transferred to the No. 12 prison in Rustavi, where he declared a hunger strike. The following month, without the consent of his family and lawyers, he was moved from Rustavi prison to a medical facility for prisoners in Tbilisi, and later to the military hospital in Gori, where he ended his hunger strike.

On May 12 of this year, Saakashvili was placed in the VivaMed civilian clinic in Tbilisi, where he remains currently. Saakashvili is facing multiple criminal cases in Georgia, which he considers illegal, and he has termed the charges against him as fabricated, according to Interfax.