Apparent gas leak kills Georgian premier
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-02-03 14:30

Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania was killed early Thursday by an apparent gas leak while at a friend's house, the ex-Soviet republic's interior minister said.

Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said in a live broadcast on Rustavi-2 television that security guards broke through a window when they heard no sign of life inside the friend's home several hours after the prime minister arrived.

Zhvania had arrived at the home at about midnight Wednesday, and the guards entered the apartment between 4 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., he said.

The friend was also killed, Merabishvili said.

"It is an accident," Merabishvili said. "We can say that poisoning by gas took place."

A longtime politician born in 1963, Zhvania was part of the opposition to former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze and played a role in protests that prompted led to Shevardnadze's ouster after against allegedly fraudulent elections in November 2003.

President Mikhail Saakashvili, who led the protests, named Zhvania prime minister following his landslide election in January 2004.

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