Jailed former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been on a hunger strike, was given a blood transfusion late on Friday and is in stable condition, Interfax news agency quoted his personal doctor as saying on Saturday, Reuters reports.
The pro-Western politician, who declared a hunger strike on Oct. 1, was arrested after returning to Georgia, having lived abroad for years. He faces up to six years in jail after being convicted in absentia in 2018 of abuse of power and concealing evidence when he was president, charges he rejects as politically motivated.
"One of the parameters of Saakashvili's blood test was bad, so local prison doctors and an emergency ambulance team helped me with the transfusion and after that Saakashvili's condition stabilized,” Nikoloz Kipshidze, Saakashvili's doctor, was quoted as saying by Interfax.
Kipshidze believes that Saakashvili should be transferred to a city hospital because "the crisis can recur and it would be difficult to cope with it in a prison hospital."
