"Mikheil Saakashvili has not been granted the opportunity to restore his right to phone calls" | Lawyer

"Even today Mikheil Saakashvili was not given the opportunity to restore his right to phone calls," lawyer Beka Basilaia said after the trial.

According to him, today's trial was an illustration of the fact that the Georgian court
refuses to administer justice if a case has not been previously agreed upon with the Minister of Justice. Basilaia also says that Mikhail Saakashvili's transfer to the court was due to international pressure.

"Today was a historic process, but unfortunately this page will be written in the history of Georgia as one more page of betrayal. To represent and condemn the third President of Georgia in this manner is a shame on Georgian history. As thousands of other detainees have a right to a phone call, Saakashvili does not. The government's objective is to isolate Saakashvili. The fact that Saakashvili was brought to court today, is because of strong international pressure the government would have to bring Saakashvili to court, otherwise the court would not even try to do such a thing," said Beka Basilaia.

As for the postponement of the trial, according to Bek Basilaia, the prosecution wanted to postpone the trial to a later time. According to Basilaia, during the hearing the prosecutor's office did not allow the defence to file a motion and said that the hearing of video evidence at the trial was urgent, but after the judge postponed the hearing to December 23, the prosecutor's office did not object to the date.

The prosecution's position regarding the continuation of the hearing was very interesting, they said today that we should not consider the defence motions, we have video evidence to investigate, we are in a hurry, and when the court announced the hearing on December 23 they did not protest. Moreover, they said they didn't have to keep it at 23 anyway, that it could be postponed further, I think they wanted to continue the case in 2022. Do you know what that means? It means that the prosecutor's office has no evidence against Mikheil Saakashvili in this case," Basilaia said.