- TBILISI, Georgia - Georgian
Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania was killed early Thursday by an apparent gas
leak while at a friendís house, the ex-Soviet republicís
interior minister said.
-
- advertisement Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said
in a live broadcast on Rustavi-2 television that security guards broke
through a window when they heard no sign of life inside the friendís
home several hours after the prime minister arrived.
-
- Zhvania had arrived at the home at about midnight Wednesday,
and the guards entered the apartment between 4 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., he said.
-
- The friend was also killed, Merabishvili said.
-
- "It is an accident," Merabishvili said. "We
can say that poisoning by gas took place."
-
- A longtime politician born in 1963, Zhvania was part
of the opposition to former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze and
played a role in protests that prompted led to Shevardnadzeís ouster
after against allegedly fraudulent elections in November 2003.
-
- President Mikhail Saakashvili, who led the protests,
named Zhvania prime minister following his landslide election in January
2004.
-
- © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
|
