The search for the tomb of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgia's president in 1991-1992, was initiated by his son, Tsotne Friday.
Valery Kuznetsov, top prosecutor of Russia's republic of Chechnya bordering Georgia, said the coffin had been found near a residence, which late Dzhokhar Dudayev, the first Chechen president and separatist leader, had given Gamsakhurdia as a present.
"The coffin has been taken out of the grave," Kuznetsov said. "Forensic experts are working at the site."
Gamsakhurdia died in 1993 at the age of 54 in mysterious circumstances two years after he was ousted and replaced by Eduard Shevardnadze as a result of a civil war. It has not been established to this day whether he was assassinated or committed suicide.
The prosecutor said the coffin would be taken to the forensic department and then they would decide on identifying the remains and starting a criminal investigation.
The son of the late Georgian leader said he was sure the remains belonged to his father. "I have no doubt that it is him. There was a cross, and the soil, which we had brought from Georgia, shoes and a watch in the coffin," he said, adding that he and other family members had put all these objects into the coffin themselves.
Tsotne Gamsakhurdia said the body would be reburied after all the necessary examinations on Georgian soil. "I don't care whether Georgian authorities will pay the honors to my father or not. I will bury him on his soil," he said.
For more than a year after his death, Gamsakhurdia's body could not be found. It was recovered in February 1994 and reburied in Grozny, the Chechen capital.
After Mikheil Saakashvili became Georgian president in 2003, he rehabilitated Gamsakhurdia's name and released his supporters imprisoned during Shevardnadze's tenure.
