The FBI and the United States secret service were on Wednesday morning investigating a report that a hand grenade had been thrown towards US President Bush as he was making a speech in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.
The secret service, which provides Bush’s bodyguards, was told by Georgian authorities of a report that a device, possibly a hand grenade, was thrown to within 30m of the stage on which the president was speaking.
According to Jonathan Cherry, a secret service spokesperson, the device hit someone in the crowd and fell to the ground without detonating. It was picked up and removed by a Georgian security officer.
The Associated Press quoted a spokesperson for the Georgian interior ministry, Guram Donadze, as denying any such incident had happened.
”This is an absolute lie. This did not occur,” Donadze said.
However, he later said that an announcement about the report would be made later on Wednesday.
Cherry told reporters that secret service agents were working with investigators from the FBI, the state department and the Georgian authorities to find out what happened.
The news emerged as Bush was returning to the US after a trip that also included Russia, Latvia and the Netherlands. He was the first American president to visit Georgia. – Guardian Unlimited Â