Georgian opposition figure dies in London

By Xinhua

London : Georgian businessman and opposition politician Badri Patarkatsishvili died here following a heart attack, the BBC reported Wednesday.


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His former business associate, exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, said he died at about 2300 GMT Tuesday, said the report.

Patarkatsishvili, 52, who lived in self-imposed exile in Britain and Israel, financed his own campaign in January’s presidential election, which was won by incumbent Mikhail Saakashvili.

After the election Patarkatsishvili had been charged with plotting a coup in connection with anti-government protests last year, the report said.

A supporter of the Rose Revolution which brought Saakashvili to power in 2004, Patarkatsishvili later turned against the government and began financing opposition parties.

The authorities accused him of offering $100 million in bribe to a senior police official to help him overthrow the government and seize the Georgian interior minister.

He denied the charge, saying that he himself was being targeted in an assassination plot.

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