Posted on 08/01/2005 1:12:43 PM PDT by jb6
Georgian Opposition Leader Says Grenade Attack on Bush Was Staged by Authorities
The leader of the Georgian opposition Labor Party said on Thursday that the grenade attack on U.S. President Bush in Tbilisi on May 10 was prepared and staged by Georgia’s secret services in a bid to improve the image of Georgian President Saakashvili and present him as a staunch fighter for democracy.
“On the basis of the analysis of the information I had received I want to announce for the whole world that the May 10 terrorist attack against Bush was carried out by Saakashvili’s special services in order to salvage the destroyed image of the dictatorship,” Russia’s RIA-Novosti news agency quoted Shalva Natelashvili as saying.
“By this Saakashvili wanted to make the media mention his name along with the U.S. president’s name as a man who fights for democracy and who is a victim of terrorism,” Natelashvili said.
The politician claimed that the suspected attacker, Vladimir Arutunyan, has been an agent of Georgia’s special services for many years and got his weapons from them.
After presenting this theory Natelashvili said that he would demand that Georgian investigators are not allowed to handle the case and that Arutunyan is handed over to American justice.
Vladimir Arutunyan was detained in Tbilisi on July 20 and charged with terrorism on July 26. He has pleaded guilty to tossing a hand grenade at the stage during George Bush’s public speech in Tbilisi on May 10. The grenade did not explode because it was wrapped too tightly in a handkerchief and the impact was too light to set off the primer.
Rove again...naturally.
Maybe Shalva is Georgian for Howard, and Natelashvili is Georgian for Dean?
His main opposition are the Conservatives, the New Conservatives, Labor and the Republicans.
Secret departments are great for conspiracy theorists.
TBILISI, Georgia -- Georgia's Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili has identified a Russian military intelligence agent behind a bombing in Gori.
Three policemen were killed in the February 1 car bombing. The Georgian daily Rezonansi said that Merabishvili named Anatolii Sysoev as a member of Russia's Main Intelligence Administration (GRU -- Glavnoye Razvedovatelnoye Upravlenie).
Merabishvili said that Georgian security officials in South Ossetia arrested three other persons suspected in carrying out the attack. "According to our information, a year and half ago colonel of the Russia's GRU Anatoly Sisoev set up a group of saboteurs which, according to our information, was trained on the territory of Russia. This group has carried out the terrorist act here in Gori," he said.
Gia Valiev and Gia Zasiev were arrested in the Tskhinvali region. Police also arrested Joseb Kochiev, who allegedly bought a car shortly before the terrorist act in which an explosive was detonated.
Merabishvili met with the Russian Ambassador in Georgia on July 25 and gave him all the materials of the investigation.
Anatoly Sysoev was born in 1950 in Tbilisi and served in the GRU military intelligence. In 1992 Sysoev officially resigned from the GRU, departing for Azerbaijan where participated in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 1992-1995 as a head of field intelligence of the Azerbaijani field artillery. In 1995 Sysoev was arrested by Azerbaijan on treason charges.
Azerbaijani police charged Sysoev in an assassination attempt on Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliev by blowing up his airplane with an IGLA man-portable anti-aircraft missile. Sysoev received a 15-year jail sentence, which was later reduced to 10 years. In 2001 he was granted amnesty and left for Ukraine.
Sysoev returned to the region in 2002 as a military advisor to South Ossetian president Eduard Kokoev. Merabishvili noted that the three Goribomb blast suspects said that Sysoev was training a group of approximately 120 saboteurs in South Ossetia and that his group possessed at least four IGLA missiles.
The Ajarian “footprint” in the assassination attempt could fairly quickly develop into a Russian footprint, given Abashidze's close relations with Moscow. - LINK
Heard on Georgia's TV Late Show last night...what do you do when Vladimir Arutunyan throws a grenade at you?...pull out the pin and throw it back...
:0)
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