Georgian intelligence admits assassination attempt against president

Sandro Kavsadze, a former high-ranking official of the Georgian Defense Ministry, said on Monday that opposition oligarch Badri Patarkatsishvili who died in 2008 offered him to kill President Mikheil Saakashvili, Vzglyad reports.

Vice-Colonel Kavsadze was supervising the Intelligence Directorate of the Defense Ministry. He says that the oligarch wanted to revenge Saakashvili for killing Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, who died in 2005.

Kavsadze said that Patarkatsishvili hired two Russian killers for the job, but they killed a police officer checking their apartment. Patarkatsishvili had to kill them before the story would be revealed. The oligarch offered Kavsadze $50 million for killing the president.