Son of the first Georgian president arrested

28 Oct, 2009 02:31 / Updated 14 years ago

The middle son of the first president of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, was arrested on Tuesday night on charges of inflicting injury on another person.

Tsotne Gamsakhurdia was detained in connection with a shooting in the capital Tbilisi. The victim, David Badzhelidze, is in a hospital undergoing treatment after a gunshot wound to the stomach.

Georgian police withheld comment.

It's not the first arrest for Gamsakhurdia. In September 2008 he was detained on allegations of espionage for Russia and conspiracy to overthrow the government, but was released on bail.

His father, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, was an advocate in Soviet times and became president of Georgia prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union. He mysteriously died in 1993 at the age of 54, a couple of years after he was overthrown by former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze as a result of a civil war in the country.