Soviets Admit Using Deadly Gas
The Communist Party chief of the Soviet Republic of Georgia acknowledged today that some victims of a clash earlier this month between protesters and soldiers died of gas poisoning.
Givi Gumbaridze, chief of the Georgian Communist Party, acknowledged widespread reports today that soldiers used a harmful gas to crush pro-independence demonstrations in Tbilisi. “The fact that gases were used is the truth. Yes, some people died from poisoning,” he told reporters taken to the southern republic by the Soviet Foreign Ministry.
His remark was the first by a top official acknowledging that some protesters were killed by gas used April 9 to help break up a crowd of thousands of demonstrators in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. At least 19 people were killed as soldiers using clubs, shovels and gas dispersed the demonstrators, and official accounts said one man was shot later.
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