Bidzina Ivanishvili, former prime minister and founder of the Georgian Dream party, waves during a pro-government rally in support of a bill on "foreign agents" in Tbilisi.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Tbilisi: Georgia's state security service said on Wednesday it was investigating a plot to assassinate billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorary chairman of the ruling party.
The State Security Service said in a post on Facebook that it was looking into criminal activities that aimed to "violently overthrow" the state government and create unrest.
This included the murder of Ivanishvili, the country's richest man who founded the ruling Georgian Dream party. The billionaire, who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s, returned to the public stage this spring as a strong supporter of a controversial bill on "foreign agents".
The bill, which requires organisations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as "agents of foreign influence", prompted mass protests in the capital Tbilisi and threw the South Caucasus country into political chaos.
The security service did not name any suspects, but independent Caucasus news site OC-Media said at least six people have been summoned for questioning. The news report, which cited a lawyer and two of the people, said most of them had fought against Russia in the Ukraine war.
Ukraine's SBU security service did not immediately return a call for comment.
The Georgian State Security Service, which did not mention Ukraine in its post, did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.
Georgian authorities have repeatedly accused Ukraine-based Georgians fighting against Russia of plotting a coup to overthrow the government. Tbilisi says it opposes Russia's war but has declined to impose sanctions on Moscow over the conflict.