(Bloomberg) -- Jailed Georgian ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili declared a hunger strike Wednesday over a failed court hearing. Hours later, his lawyer said it had been called off. 

Saakashvili announced the protest to demand prison officials allow him to participate in the hearing by video link from a clinic in the capital, Tbilisi, where he’s being treated for health problems, his lawyer Shalva Khachapuridze told reporters. Officials blamed technical problems with the connection to the court, which then postponed the hearing to Dec. 22.

The leader of Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution abandoned the hunger strike after the European Parliament adopted its report on progress in the country’s Association Agreement with the bloc, which included a call for Saakashvili to be freed and allowed to go abroad for medical treatment, Khachapuridze said. Members of the parliament had urged him to stop, the lawyer said.

Saakashvili went on hunger strike in February to protest “unjust treatment” in detention, where he’s being held on charges of abuse of authority as president that he’s called politically motivated. He ended a 49-day hunger strike over conditions in custody in November last year after he was moved to a military hospital.

The European Union said Dec. 8 it was closely following reports about Saakashvili’s deteriorating health and warned that Georgian authorities “have a duty to take all necessary measures for him to receive appropriate medical care.” Other European leaders have also expressed concern about his condition.

Saakashvili was detained in October last year after entering Georgia for the first time since stepping down at the end of his presidency in 2013 and fleeing abroad. The authorities say he crossed into the Caucasus republic illegally. 

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