A man who admitted throwing a live grenade toward United States President George Bush during a rally in Georgia acted alone and had no links to foreign nations, the interior minister said in an interview published on Tuesday.
Vladimir Arutyunian, who was indicted in September by a US grand jury on charges of trying to assassinate the president, will face trial in Georgia soon, Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili told the 24 Hours newspaper.
”Arutyunian was a terrorist acting alone,” Merabishvili said.
”We haven’t found any evidence of his links to any foreign special services.”
Arutyunian faces terrorism and murder charges in Georgia stemming from the May 10 incident in Tbilisi and the killing of a policeman in a shootout before his arrest in July. The charges carry a punishment of life imprisonment — the same punishment that he would face in the United States.
Bush and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili were behind a bulletproof barrier addressing a rally of thousands in Tbilisi in May when the grenade, wrapped in a plaid cloth, landed about 30m away. It did not explode; investigators said it apparently malfunctioned. No one was harmed.
In a video broadcast on Georgian television, Arutyunian said he intended to spray shrapnel over the bulletproof glass.
After Arutyunian’s arrest, suspicions arose that Arutyunian might be linked to Russian forces in Georgia, an ex-Soviet republic, following reports that Russian military uniforms were found in his house. Russian officials angrily denied that
Arutyunian had any links to the Russian military.
Relations between Russia and Georgia had been tense over the Russian peacekeepers role in Georgia’s breakaway provinces and other issues. – Sapa-AP