: Police in Georgia shot dead a former military officer on Thursday and wounded two others suspected of plotting a recent mutiny that embarrassed the government and fueled opposition demands for the president to resign.
Protesters blocking Tbilisi´s streets in the seventh week of an anti-government campaign condemned the pre-dawn shootings, which erupted when police stopped a van carrying the three suspected of leading the mutiny at a tank battalion base.
The suspects had been headed for refuge in one of Georgia´s rebel-held provinces when their van was stopped before dawn, an Interior Ministry statement said.
A gunbattle broke out after the suspects resisted arrest, ministry spokesman Grigol Beselia said. Former military officer Giorgy Krialashvili was killed, while Koba Otanadze and Levan Ameridze were wounded, Beselia said.
Police also found almost $4,000 in cash and dozens of cellphone SIM cards with the suspects, the ministry´s statement said.
A lawyer for the wounded men, Onise Mebonia, said their injuries were not severe, but that he had been prevented from visiting them in the hospital.
Georgian officials initially claimed the short-lived mutiny on May 5 was part of a Russian-backed plot to bring down the government, but later backtracked and said its apparent aim was to disrupt NATO military exercises under way in Georgia. Russia has criticized the exercises, which end June 1.
Some 2,000 opposition supporters on Thursday marched through the capital to the Defense Ministry. They decried the shootings of the suspected mutineers and observed a minute of silence in their honor.
“The mutiny should have been investigated, and only a court should have made a decision,” said Nino Burdzhanadze, an opposition leader once allied with President Mikhail Saakashvili. Burdzhanadze criticized police for not taking all three suspects alive and unharmed.
The opposition has led almost daily protests since April 9 pressing Saakashvili to resign. They have blame Saakashvili for last year´s disastrous war with Russia, and accuse him of monopolizing power in the Caucasus Mountain nation.
“We won´t sit in silence and wait for Georgia to turn into dictatorship,” said protester Vano Gabriashvili, a 45-year-old factory worker.
Zviad Dzidiguri, another opposition leader, accused the government of turning the military and police into “instruments of political struggle.”
Opposition leaders have also said they doubted the government´s account of the mutiny, and accused the president of using it to draw attention away from the protests and problems facing the country.
“Active protests are the only way to influence the situation in Georgia, which is worsening every day,” Burdzhanadze said. “Only Saakashvili´s resignation can normalize the situation.”
Saakashvili is far less popular than when he won the presidency after leading the peaceful Rose Revolution protests in 2003.
But the opposition has struggled to muster widespread support, and some citizens have expressed frustration at the regular roadblocks in Tbilisi due to the protests.
“The opposition disturbs not Saakashvili, but us ordinary citizens who suffer most,” said Goga Sanikidze, 36, whose car was halted in traffic during Thursday´s demonstration.
Georgia, which straddles an export route for Caspian Sea oil and gas, has been a focus of geopolitical rivalry between Russia and the United States.
The pro-Western, US-educated Saakashvili´s drive to join NATO has angered Russia, which dominated Georgia for two centuries.