Georgia investigates alleged plot to kill ruling party founder

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TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgia’s state security service said on Wednesday it was investigating a plot to assassinate former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorary chairman of the governing party.

The State Security Service said in a post on Facebook that it was looking into what it said were criminal activities intended to “violently overthrow” the government and create unrest.

It said these included a plan to murder Ivanishvili, the country’s richest man who founded the governing Georgian Dream party and was prime minister from October 2012 to November 2013.

The 68-year-old billionaire, who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, returned to the public stage this spring as a strong supporter of a bill on “foreign agents”.

The bill, which requires organisations that receive over 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence”, prompted mass protests in the capital Tbilisi and threw the South Caucasus country into political chaos.

The security service named no suspects but independent Caucasus news site OC-Media said at least six people had been summoned for questioning, citing a lawyer and two of those people. It said most had fought against Russia in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s SBU security service did not immediately return a call for comment.

The Georgian State Security Service, which did not mention Ukraine in its post, did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.

Tinatin Bokuchava, leader of the United National Movement (UNM) opposition party, said the reports of a coup plan were an “absurd delusion and constant conspiracy theory” put forward by Ivanishvili before a parliamentary election due by October.

Bokuchava was quoted Georgia’s Interpress news agency as saying the reports were evidence of “Russian-style propaganda, what our Western partners call hybrid warfare” intended to mislead the public and keep Georgian Dream in power.

Georgian authorities have repeatedly accused Ukraine-based Georgians fighting against Russia of plotting a coup in Georgia. Tbilisi says it opposes Russia’s war but has not joined sanctions against Moscow over the conflict.