Mikheil Saakashvili Deserves U.S. Attention

Recent images showing the emaciated figure of Mikheil Saakashvili have shocked the internet. As president of Georgia (2004-13), he was a consistent and strong anti-Putin, pro-Western voice. On returning to his country, which Russia now rules by proxy, he was arrested, and he currently sits behind bars for corruption. His real crime is his love for the ideals of the free world, and for that sin, the West must rescue him at all costs.

Mr. Saakashvili has been a loyal friend to the U.S. His bold embrace of democracy and free markets—much to Moscow’s chagrin—quickly pulled Georgia from a failed state to a top location for doing business. While president in the mid-2000s, Mr. Saakashvili served as a role model for other pro-democracy revolutions around the world.

During a historic visit to Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, in 2004, President George W. Bush underscored his support for Mr. Saakashvili’s determination in bringing liberty to Georgia and the region. In return Mr. Saakashvili asked that his country receive security assurances should it feel Vladimir Putin’s predictable wrath. But when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, Mr. Bush didn’t take a strong enough stand against the Kremlin. It took Moscow’s 2014 invasion of Crimea for the U.S. to impose sanctions on Russia.

Russia’s grip on Georgia remains strong. After the 2008 invasion failed to unseat Mr. Saakashvili, Moscow interfered in the 2012 election to oust Mr. Saakashvili in favor of Russian-funded oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili. The unfamiliar tactics introduced then—secret funds and an election awash in disinformation—are now signature Kremlin operations. People have claimed that Mr. Saakashvili took shortcuts with the law and tilted democratic processes in his favor while in power, but unlike so many in the region, he accepted the people’s will and left office.

Mr. Saakashvili warned that the West’s lack of response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia would catalyze Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine. For that criticism the West treated Mr. Saakashvili as a provocateur and a threat to Western business interests with Moscow. We now see the results.

Despite cleaning the judiciary, transforming the economy and establishing independent media, Mr. Saakashvili was convicted in 2018 of abuse of power and corruption under highly questionable evidence and testimony produced by the Georgian state. At the time Mr. Saakashvili was exiled in Ukraine and had been serving as governor of the Odessa region. On the eve of local elections in 2021, in a bid to turn Georgia around, he returned to his homeland where he was arrested and has since been imprisoned.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky saw the skeletal picture of Mr. Saakashvili from a June court appearance, he immediately dismissed the Georgian ambassador to Ukraine and accused the Georgian regime of judicial murder. According to Mr. Saakashvili’s U.S. medical team and lawyers, the former Georgian president has been poisoned multiple times during his prison sentence, leaving him unable to digest food for weeks at a time. Officials seem to be waiting until his condition deteriorates to an irreversible point before they release him to die away from Georgian soil. Meantime, the Georgian government maintains that the prisoner’s family is feeding him a “low-calorie diet” to help him lose weight.

Save for Mr. Zelensky’s reaction, the West has done little but express concern as Russia’s proxies assault Western values through starving a leader who once embodied them. Moscow knows that Mr. Saakashvili’s fate represents the West’s resolve to uphold its values. Either the U.S. realizes this and corrects its mistake, or the West will face much worse at the hands of the Kremlin.

Mr. Kaylan writes about culture and the arts for the Journal.