Mikheil Saakashvili has been selected as the 2022 recipient of the prestigious Lech Kaczynski Promethean Award from the Niezalezna.pl portal. This honour is in recognition of Saakashvili’s exceptional efforts in the struggle for Georgia and Central and Eastern Europe’s freedom, despite being subject to imprisonment by a pro-Russian regime. However, some members of a Georgian pro-Russian political party made a baseless suggestion that Saakashvili purchased the award.
The President Lech Kaczyński Promethean Award Gala will take place on 14 April 2023. One of the award recipients will be Mikheil Saakashvili, President of Georgia from 2004 to 2013.
Georgian media recall that Mikheil Saakashvili, the third president of Georgia, “will receive one of the highest Polish honours, the Promethean Award, for his merits in the fight for freedom”.
Named the Promethean Award of President Lech Kaczynski, the Inter-Ministerial Award was created to recognise activities in the diplomatic field aimed at the integration and development of countries between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic Seas.
A politician of the pro-Russian Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia party, Eka Sepashvili, attacked Saakashvili. She said that the former president’s family had paid for the award.
“It is possible that the awards were paid for by the family of the third president,”
Eka Sevashvili said.
Meanwhile, people linked to the Georgian Dream are keeping Saakashvili in prison. He is currently serving a six-year prison sentence handed down in 2016 for ‘abuse of power’, which he and his supporters believe is a politically motivated punishment.
The former president’s medical team relayed that his health has deteriorated significantly since he was taken to prison in October 2021 and began conducting further hunger strikes. At the end of 2021, he was taken to the hospital.
Saakashvili is currently being treated in a hospital in Tbilisi.
His lawyers sought a suspension of his sentence to allow him to travel abroad for treatment. The court in the Georgian capital has not released Saakashvili or suspended his sentence.
Shalva Khachapuridze, the 55-year-old Saakashvili’s defence lawyer, announced that the lawyers would turn to the European Court of Human Rights.
Mother of the former president in Poland
Saakashvili’s mother, Giulia Alasania, is in Poland. She came to Poland at the invitation of the Niezalezna.pl portal and the chapter of the President Lech Kaczyński Promethean Award.
She laid flowers at the Monument to the Victims of the Smolensk Catastrophe at the Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw, at the Lech Kaczyński Monument and at the Monument to the Victims of the Smolensk Tragedy 2010 at marsh. Józef Piłsudski Square in Warsaw.
Saakashvili talks about Poland
“Poland is the noblest and faithful to ideals country in the world. If I manage to survive, I will be grateful to Poland for that. Lech Kaczyński was the politician who had the greatest influence on my views,” said in an interview with Polish Radio Michaeil Saakashvili.