Bodies Found Near Site of Protests in Georgia

Georgia’s Interior Ministry reported the discovery of two bodies on a roof near the site of the past week’s antigovernment demonstrations, and said that the police were studying whether the deaths could have been related to the protests.

The ministry said the bodies were found on Friday atop a store near a subway station. The preliminary cause of death was said to be electrocution, possibly from touching an electric cable, officials said.

The deaths of two people had already been attributed to the protests — a policeman and a demonstrator who were hit by vehicles leaving the scene as demonstrators scattered under pressure from the police.

A group of several thousand demonstrators gathered Saturday to protest the use of force against protesters. The State Department and Britain’s minister for European affairs have both called on Georgia to investigate the violence.

“I was saddened to hear of violence on the streets of Tbilisi,” David Lidington , the British minister, said in a statement. “Whilst there is a place for legal protest and demonstrations in any democracy, there can be no place for violence.” President Mikheil Saakashvili has said that he believes that the protesters were backed by Russia and that they provoked the violence.

The American ambassador to Georgia, John R. Bass, seemed to support part of that assertion in remarks to Georgian television on Thursday, noting that “there were clearly a number of people included in that protest who were not interested in peacefully protesting, but were looking to spark a violent confrontation.”

The Interior Ministry has released video recordingsthat it says show members of an opposition group discussing how to instigate clashes with the police using sticks and slingshots, among other weapons. Another shows the motorcade, which the police say belonged to an opposition leader, driving into a crowd.

Around 1,000 protesters had occupied a viewing stand where Mr. Saakashvili was scheduled to preside over a military parade on Thursday, and the police moved in with tear gas to disperse the crowd slightly after midnight, when a rally permit expired. On Friday, the Interior Ministry posted a list of 105 demonstrators who had been arrested.

Ellen Barry, Moscow, The New York Times

Georgian Translation – foreingpress.ge