PROSECUTOR DEMANDS LIFE SENTENCE FOR THE MAN CHARGED WITH ATTEMPTING TO KILL U.S. PRESIDENT

Armenpress
Dec 28 2005

TBILISI, DECEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS: A Georgian prosecutor asked a court in Tbilisi to sentence a man charged with the attempted murder of the U.S.

President George Bush when he was visiting Georgia last May 10 to life imprisonment. The defendant, Vladimir Harutunian, has sewed up his mouth in what he says is a protest at a violation of his rights.

Vladimir Harutunian is accused of throwing a hand grenade at Bush and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili while they were addressing a public audience on Freedom Square in central Tbilisi on May 10. The grenade did not explode. Harutunian was arrested in Tbilisi on July 20 after a shootout with Georgian police that resulted in the death of Col. Zurab Kvlividze, the head of the Georgian Interior Ministry's counterintelligence department.

The defendant came to the court hearing on Tuesday with his mouth sewed up. He claimed earlier his rights were violated. At the beginning of December, Harutunian refused to testify in his case unless representatives of Human Rights Watch attended the proceedings. He said the sentence had been "handed down even before the trial began."