I think that if Mikheil Saakashvili is dying in custody, sanctions against several people will be inevitable. This will give Georgian politicians a big headache, said the executive director of the Heritage Foundation, one of the authors of the Magnitsky List, Bill Browder, during an interview with TV Pirveli.

As Browder noted, the more information there is about Mikheil Saakashvili being tortured, the more likely it is to create a temporary so-called Saakashvili list, which will include people who participate in this action.

"I hope that people who are making decisions now will stop such an action, because if Saakashvili dies, they will have a hard life. It is obvious that Mikheil Saakashvili is being tortured. This can be seen from the photos, it didn't take a medical expert to see it. What's more interesting is who's responsible, as prosecutors are blocking his pleas to get medical treatment, prison doctors are probably involved in wrongdoing, and government officials are giving orders. The more information we have, the more likely we are to create a temporary, as we call it, Saakashvili list where we include people who do this. This is an unbelievably evil act. This is a humanitarian issue and every day we hear from the Georgian government that they stubbornly do not release him and send him to Europe for treatment. In this way, Georgia destroys its reputation at the international level.

Mikheil Saakashvili stood up to Putin in 2008 when he invaded Georgia. He carried out a personal vendetta against Mikheil Saakashvili. There are people in the Georgian government who like Putin. And now it is clear that the situation is not going in a normal way. In my opinion, Vladimir Putin is behind all this. He is trying to take revenge on Mikheil Saakashvili, who treated him disrespectfully. This is also a message to Vladimir Zelensky: 'Here's what will happen to you in the future.' Therefore, we should not allow this.

I am not an expert in the internal politics of Georgia, so I cannot speculate on who is behind this. What I can say is that the government should send him abroad for treatment, to get proper treatment. If they do not choose this path, then they will sign themselves to the loss of power. They will have problems with the West for tens of years, including in terms of sanctions," said Bill Browder.

The quotes in the article have been double-translated from Georgian and wordings may be inaccurate.

source: IPN