TBILISI, September 27 (RIA Novosti) - Former Georgian defense minister Irakly Okruashvili, an outspoken critic of President Mikheil Saakashvili, was detained by police Thursday on corruption charges, the Prosecutor General's Office said.
Okruashvili was arrested in the office of his opposition movement "For United Georgia," formed earlier this week.
Deputy Prosecutor General Nikoloz Gvaramia said: "Investigations revealed illicit deals in which Okruashvili took part."
He has also been charged with blackmail, money laundering, abuse of power, and professional negligence, Gvaramia said.
A lawyer representing the ex-minister, Eka Beselia, called the arrest political, and linked it to Okruashvili's comments made in an Imedi TV interview on Tuesday, in which he accused President Saakashvili of corruption and an attempt to kill businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili. He also alleged Georgian authorities had covertly planned to seize control over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia in 2006.
"The deadline was the spring of 2006. Only three or four persons were privy to it: the president, myself, Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili, and Prosecutor General Zurab Adeishvili," he told Imedi. However, he said the Georgian president lacked the resolve to order Russian peacekeepers out of the conflict zones.
