TBILISI, January 16. /ITAR-TASS/. Georgia’s Prosecutor General’s Office plans to conduct an exhumation of former Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania’s body, the country’s current Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili told a news conference on Thursday.

“A Swiss laboratory will participate in the exhumation in case there are any questions or doubts regarding the process and study the remains of the ex-prime minister”, he told the media. Besides, the prosecutors are also negotiating with another, Israeli laboratory.

“We want to openly investigate the circumstances of Zurab Zhvania’s death in order to eliminate any questions or grounds for speculation”, stressed Garibashvili.

 

Murder of Zurab Zhvania

Zurab Zhvania was Georgia’s parliament Chairman during 1995-2001 and then became the prime minister after Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze was ousted in November 2003. According to the official version, Zhvania, aged 42, and his friend Raul Usupov, 27-year-old deputy governor of Georgia's Kvemo Kartli region, died on February 3, 2005 from carbon monoxide poisoning due to an inadequately ventilated gas heater in Usupov’s apartment in Tbilisi. However, Zhvania's family members and the opposition questioned the official version of the death, so the prosecutors reopened the case for further investigation of the circumstances in November 2012.