Georgian police detained the son-in-law of ousted President Eduard Shevardnadze as he prepared to fly out of the country on Friday, the general prosecutor said.
Russia's Itar-Tass news agency said Gia Dzhokhtaberidze, who heads Magti, Georgia's biggest mobile phone company, had been held on suspicion of tax evasion. Prosecutor General Irakly Okruashvili said his office had received a letter from Dzhokhtaberidze saying he planned to travel to the United States. "Investigators recommended that he stay in Tbilisi but he ignored that recommendation", Okruashvili told Rustavi-2 television.
A senior employee at Magti, who asked not to be named, said Dzhokhtaberidze had been setting off on a business trip and was taken off a plane as it readied to leave for Paris.
President Mikhail Saakashvili, a 36-year-old U.S.-trained lawyer who led street protests that toppled Shevardnadze last November, launched a drive against high-level corruption after winning election in a landslide. Saakashvili promised the veteran Georgian leader and former Soviet foreign minister immunity from prosecution as a condition for his resignation, but Okruashvili has refused to rule out a move against Shevardnadze.