Zurab Zhvania is Dead

The Georgian Cabinet met in an extraordinary session in connection with the sudden death of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania. The meeting was chaired by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.

Earlier this morning Georgian Minister of Police and Public Security Vano Merabishvili and General Prosecutor Zurab Adeishvili had brokeb the news of the Prime Minister's death at a special briefing for journalists. At about midnight Zurab Zhvania had reportedly come to visit his friend Raul Yusupov, a presidential deputy commissioner in one of Georgia's regions. At 4.30 a.m., after the prime minister failed to answer phone calls and nobody answered the door, the guards forced the window and entered the apartment where they found both men dead. Zhvania's body was in a chair in the sitting room, and Yusupov's body in the kitchen. A small table was laid in the sitting room.

Preliminary data indicate that the deaths of Zurab Zhvania and Raul Yusupov were caused by consumer gas poisoning. According to Vano Merabishvili, there was an Iranian-made gas fireplace at Yusupov's home.

Observers believe the death of the Georgian prime minister under most strange and mysterious circumstances may cause a lot of rumors. Substantial differences have been repeatedly reported to split the Georgian leadership. Sources indicate that the newly-appointed Georgian Minister of Defense Irakli Okruashvili was actively trying to get the chair of the country's prime minister. For that purpose he initiated a series of scandals wherein he charged Zhvania's close associates with corruption.

Besides, Zurab Zhvania was one of the few Georgian "young reformers" who took a relatively liberal stance towards Russia. His line for a peaceful settlement of the Abkhazia-Georgian and Ossetia-Georgian disputes had caused undisguised irritation of the Tbilisi "hawks" whose leader is Irakli Okruashvili. Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili whose favorite and protégé is Irakli Okruashvili is reported to have recently grown cool towards his prime minister.