MOSCOW -- Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze said Thursday he was 'sorry' to hear reports that ousted Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia had committed suicide last week, and stressed he had never sought his death.
'For us it was clear that the ex-president had for a long time been a political corpse,' Shevardnadze told the Itar-Tass news agency. 'That is why Georgia's leaders did not aim to liquidate his supporters or the man himself.'
Gamsakhurdia's wife, Manana, said Wednesdasy that the former president shot himself on New Year's Eve in western Georgia as a rebel band he was leading was surrounded by troops loyal to Shevardnadze.
There was still no official confirmation of his death from the Georgian authorities, although Shevardnadze sent a group of Georgian security officials to the south Russian region of Chechenya to investigate the reports.
The ex-leader fled with his family to Chechenya after he was deposed in an armed revolt in January 1992, and when he returned to Georgia last fall to launch a comeback bid, Manana stayed behind in the Chechen capital Grozny.
Meanwhile, the Interfax agency quoted Gamsakhurdia's supporters in Moscow as saying reports of his suicide were a 'fabrication' aimed at luring the ex-president's relatives to Georgia and kidnapping them.
There were also conflicting reports about the circumstances surrounding Gamsakhurdia's death, with Shevardnadze saying the ex- president may have died from bullet wounds sustained in a shootout between his aides in Chechenya.
However, Manana denied the rumors. She said she had not seen her husband for the last three months, ever since he cut short his exile to lead an abortive military offensive against Shevardnadze's regime.
The 65-year-old former Soviet foreign minister, who came to power in Georgia after Gamsakhurdia was toppled in a bloody uprising in January 1992, acknowledged there was still uncertainty as to the real cause of Gamsakhurdia's demise.
'Whatever the real reason...his death has no great significance for the situation in Georgia,' Shevardnadze told Itar-Tass.
He said that an official delegation from Chechenya, where Gamsakhurdia had lived in exile after being driven from office, arrived in Tbilisi Wednesday to confirm the reports of the ex-president's death.
Interfax said the Chechen officials had asked for Gamsakhurdia be buried in his family's cemetery next to his Tbilisi home. But the agency quoted Manana as saying the Georgian authorities were unlikely to agree to this request.
Maverick Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev said that in case the request was refused, Gamsakhurdia should be buried in Grozny with full honors. There were also appeals to name a street in the Chechen capital after the ex-president.
