Carbon monoxide gas cause the death of Zurab Zhvania

The prime minister of Georgia, &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/cis/2001/11/01/19833.html ' target=_blank>Zurab Zhvania, was found dead in an apartment in Tbilisi early yesterday, apparently poisoned by carbon monoxide from a faulty gas heater. Officials said a preliminary examination of Mr Zhvania's body and that of a friend, Raul Usupov, the deputy governor of the Kvemo-Kartli region who was also found in the apartment, showed no signs of a violent death. David Morchiladze, head of the city gas supplier Tbilgaz, said high levels of carbon monoxide were found in the flat. Mr Zhvania, 41, played an important role in the "rose revolution" in November 2003 that ousted the former Soviet stalwart &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/cis/2002/09/13/36606.html ' target=_blank>Eduard Shevardnadze as president and led to the pro-American presidency of Mikhail Saakashvili. The premier was considered by some as a moderate within the administration, spearheading a crackdown on crime and corruption, and negotiating settlements with two of the republic's breakaway regions, Abkhazia and &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/main/18/87/344/13373_ossetia.html ' target=_blank>South Ossetia. A former parliamentary speaker, he is survived by a wife and three children, tells the Guardian Unlimited. gas-fired heating stove that was installed two days earlier in Usupov's home in the capital of Tbilisi malfunctioned in the poorly ventilated apartment, according to Georgian officials and local media reports. Such accidents are not uncommon in Georgia, where erratic electricity supplies in winter force people to get heat from other sources. After Zhvania's security detail had not heard from him for several hours, and when he failed to answer his cellphone, they broke into the apartment shortly after 4 a.m. and found the prime minister dead in an armchair in the living room before a table with an open backgammon set, officials said. Usupov's body was found in the kitchen. Officials said there were no signs of violence, reports the Boston. News agencies reported that preliminary tests indicated that Zhvania's blood contained fatal levels of a substance called carboxyhemoglobin, according to Justice Ministry official Levan Samkharauli. That means that "the cause of death was &to=http:// english.pravda.ru/accidents/2001/11/08/20440.html ' target=_blank>carbon monoxide gas," the reports quoting Samkharauli said. An autopsy was ordered yesterday and Georgian prosecutors opened an investigation. NR

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