Ousted Georgia Leader a Suicide, His Wife Says : Caucasus: Other reports say Gamsakhurdia was slain by foes or allies. The onetime hero was later branded a tyrant.

Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the ousted Georgian president who inspired a civil war that devastated his homeland, is believed to have committed suicide in exile in western Georgia, his wife and other sources said Wednesday.

Manana Gamsakhurdia told authorities and reporters that her 54-year-old husband shot himself to death in the early morning of Dec. 31 after his stronghold in the village of Dzhikhaskari was ambushed by pro-government troops.

Mrs. Gamsakhurdia said that Georgian authorities knew of her husband’s death but concealed it, and that she was informed of his death only on Wednesday, Russian news agencies reported.

However, numerous conflicting versions of Gamsakhurdia’s death poured into Moscow from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and from Chechnya, a breakaway republic in southern Russia where Gamsakhurdia spent time after a junta overthrew him in January, 1992.

One report from Tbilisi held that Gamsakhurdia was badly wounded in a Dec. 31 skirmish on Chechen territory and died Wednesday in the Chechen capital of Grozny. Another suggested he may have been shot in a fight with his own supporters.

Georgian officials in Tbilisi and Moscow said that Mrs. Gamsakhurdia, who is in Grozny, “was misinformed” and that all available information was based on rumor and had yet to be verified.

Gamsakhurdia’s supporters released what they said were the rebel leader’s last words.

“Being of sound mind, I commit this act in protest against the existing regime in Georgia and because I am deprived of the possibility to act as president, to normalize the situation and to restore law and order,” Gamsakhurdia is quoted as having said several minutes before his death. The message was distributed by Gamsakhurdia’s press service in Grozny.

Russian Television reported that the former dissident, who led the Georgian independence movement but was accused of turning dictatorial as soon as he took power, had grown despondent in defeat.

In an 11 p.m. broadcast, the station’s Tbilisi correspondent said Gamsakhurdia had retreated from western Georgia after his army was thrashed by troops loyal to Georgian President Eduard A. Shevardnadze. The philologist-turned-general fled to the mountains and then came down to live with a farm family in the village of Dzhikhaskari.

Fifty days ago, Gamsakhurdia began a hunger strike, and by the end of December the burly leader had shrunk to 132 pounds. On Dec. 29, the report said, he asked for a Bible to be placed under his head. He did not rise again.

At 4 a.m. on Dec. 31, his bodyguards reportedly heard a muffled shot in the next room and found that the rebel leader had killed himself with a shot to the temple with a Stechkin navy pistol. Gamsakhurdia was buried in the yard of the farmhouse, the TV report said.

“I would add that there is no complete clarity as to what really happened,” the TV announcer said.

It is not at all clear that Gamsakhurdia’s death will bring peace to Georgia at last.

One political analyst said that while Gamsakhurdia’s death will deprive the opposition of its most potent symbol, other leaders will quickly rise to take his place.

Meanwhile, Shevardnadze is still trying to bring an end to a separatist rebellion in the Black Sea republic of Abkhazia. Separatists there are holding their territory, but in a New Year’s address, Shevardnadze said their victory is temporary.

If confirmed, Gamsakhurdia’s suicide would be the last act of a historic and messianic figure.

An intellectual and the son of a famous Georgian novelist and patriot, Gamsakhurdia inspired a virtual cult of nationalism among supporters known as “Zviadists.”

He was first arrested as an anti-Soviet dissident at the age of 17, in 1956, and then arrested again in 1977 for founding a human rights group. In one of the most controversial acts of his career, Gamsakhurdia recanted on television and was released after serving two years of his five-year sentence.

As the Soviet Union waned, Gamsakhurdia emerged as the leader of the Georgian independence movement and quickly became the most popular man in Georgia.

On April 9, 1991, Gamsakhurdia declared Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union. The next month he was elected president with 87% of the vote.

Within months, he was being vilified as a tyrant. He arrested political opponents, closed down newspapers and inspired fear in Georgia’s ethnic minorities.

Gamsakhurdia said the Kremlin--and Shevardnadze--were inspiring his opposition. Members of the military junta that eventually overthrew him claimed his men were torturing opponents with electric shocks in the basement of the Parliament building.

His isolationist, nationalist policies alienated many, but he retained thousands of fervent supporters. Eventually, bloody battles between supporters and foes drove him into exile on Jan. 6, 1992. Shevardnadze, the distinguished former Soviet foreign minister, was invited back to lead Georgia and was subsequently elected president.

Gamsakhurdia supporters clashed repeatedly with government troops after their president was deposed. Twice during his exile, Gamsakhurdia rallied his armed followers to attempt to topple Shevardnadze. Last fall he almost succeeded.

Shevardnadze blamed Gamsakhurdia for the chronic civil wars that have plunged Georgia into political and economic anarchy, with long bread lines, fuel shortages, waves of refugees, widespread lawlessness and nearly universal misery.