4 Held in Alleged Plot to Kill Georgian Leader

Georgian officials said Friday that they have detained four men suspected of plotting to assassinate President Mikheil Saakashvili, and they accused officials in the autonomous Adzharia region of being behind the alleged plot.

The Adzharian leader rejected the accusation.

Gigi Ugulava, deputy state security minister, said that the arrests were made over nine days beginning March 23, and that two suspects are at large and believed to be in Batumi, the Adzharian capital.

Ugulava said the men were working under the direction of Adzharian Security Minister Soso Gogitidze, his deputy Gogi Kupreishvili and other provincial officials.

“This fact has been confirmed in detail,” he told journalists. It was not clear whether Georgian authorities would attempt to arrest the Adzharian officials, a move that could aggravate the dispute between Adzharia and the central government.

Saakashvili and Adzharian leader Aslan Abashidze are intense foes, and tensions between Adzharia and Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, have soared over the last month as Saakashvili pushes to bring the province back under central control.

Abashidze has alleged that Saakashvili is planning to take control of Adzharia by force. The province’s border guards last month blocked Saakashvili from entering the region, which the Georgian president says Abashidze runs as a fiefdom, withholding taxes from the central government.

After being blocked from Adzharia, Saakashvili imposed economic sanctions, which were lifted after Abashidze agreed to concessions that included backing off repression of opposition groups and allowing free parliamentary elections.

However, there were extensive complaints of violations in Adzharia in Sunday’s election, and Georgia’s elections commission on Friday annulled the results from two of the province’s six districts, Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Abashidze rejected allegations of an Adzharian-led assassination plot. “The absurdity of these statements is completely obvious,” he was quoted as telling Interfax news agency.