TBILISI. Dec 18 (Interfax) - Some members of the former Georgian government are panicking because of a new investigation into the death of former Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, Prime Minister Irakly Garibashvili said.
"It is very suspicious that members of the former ruling party have gotten panicky after the new prosecutor started a new investigation into the circumstances of Zhvania's death and also after the chief prosecutor detained Zhvania's personal bodyguard, who was at the scene of the incident when the premier died," Garibashvili told journalists on Wednesday.
He believes a statement by former Prime Minister Vano Merabishvili, who has been held in pretrial detention for eight months and who claimed on Tuesday that he had been secretly transported the previous week from a prison cell for questioning to Chief Prosecutor Otar Partskhaladze, who put pressure on him, is also related to the investigation into Zhvania's death and is aimed at discrediting the authorities and having the chief prosecutor suspended from his duties.
Meanwhile, former parliamentary speaker and currently leader of the parliamentary opposition David Bakradze told journalists on Wednesday that he demanded an immediate investigation into Merabishvili's statement.
"If Merabishvili has invented this story with the interrogation and it is proven by the examination of video records from the prison, he will compromise himself and there will be no confidence in him, but if this turns out to be true, the authorities will have to answer for this," Bakradze said.
Bakradze described as a "bubble" the reopened investigation into Zhvania's death and prosecutors' claims on new circumstances revealed in it.
"They should name these new circumstances, or otherwise this all looks like blackmail of the opposition by the authorities," Bakradze said.
Zhvania died in February 2005. It was officially concluded that the death was accidental and that the former prime minister was poisoned by carbon monoxide due to inappropriate operation of a heater. The new Georgian authorities reopened the investigation in October 2012, following the change of government in the country.