Police unveiled on Thursday an audio recording of a telephone conversation between Georgian opposition leader Nino Burjanadze and her younger son, Anzor Bitsadze, discussing a possible “Egyptian scenario” to overthrow President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Burjanadze and her son were apparently discussing ways to encourage people to hit the streets and unleash a civil war.
“There will be an Egyptian scenario and there must be an interim government…if you take responsibility, it is worth taking up a civil war,” Bitsadze was recorded as saying during the conversation.
Earlier on Thursday, Bitsadze was released after being detained while visiting opposition protesters injured in clashes with police.
Riot police dispersed a five-day central Tbilisi protest against President Mikheil Saakashvili’s rule in the early hours of Thursday.
The Interior Ministry said two people, one a former and the other a current police officer, were killed after being run over by a motorized convoy of opposition leaders fleeing the scene.
A total of 37 people remain hospitalized, eight of them are police officers.
Among those beaten during the clashes was a journalist from the satellite TV channel Russia Today (RT), Diego Marin, who had been shot in the gut by rubber bullets and beaten with a police nightstick around his kidneys.
Georgian Interpressnews news agency’s journalist, Malkhaz Chkadua, was detained by police, who disregarded his press card. Chkadua said that policemen had verbally abused him and seized his documents and voice recorder.
The Russian Foreign Ministry criticized the dispersal of the opposition, calling it “a blatant violation of human rights.”
TBILISI, May 26 (RIA Novosti)