GEORGIA: The authorities in Georgia last night called in the assistance of the US's Federal Bureau of Investigation to help investigate the bizarre death of the country's Prime Minister, apparently poisoned by a leaky gas fire.
Mr Zurab Zhvania, a key figure in fighting Mafia crime, was found dead, slumped in an armchair, next to a gas heater in a friend's apartment.
The mysterious death is the biggest setback so far to President Mikheil Saakashvili since he swept to power in the pro-democracy "Rose Revolution" two years ago. Mr Zhvania was regarded as a key figure in an ambitious reform and privatisation programme.
A red-eyed President Saakashvili met ministers, many dressed in black, and said it was "a huge blow for our country and personally for me as a president and as a person".
A team of FBI agents will fly to Georgia from Washington today. "They will carry out biological and chemical investigations," said prosecutor Gen Zurab Adeishvili.
Mr Zhvania was last seen alive by his bodyguards going into his unnamed friend's flat on Wednesday evening. While the two men played backgammon, the bodyguards surrounded the building. Mafia groups have been known to attack each other with anti-tank rockets.
At about 4.30 a.m., when he did not appear for the drive home, the guards became suspicious. They knocked on the front door and shouted from outside. When there was no answer they called him on his mobile phone. Receiving no answer, they then broke down the door.
In the sitting room they found the Prime Minister and his friend, a government official, both slumped dead in armchairs. Both men were apparently midway through a game of backgammon when they died.
Gas poisoning is common in Georgia mostly as a result of faulty gas heaters losing their pilot light because of erratic supplies.
The Interior Ministry rushed to deny any evidence of foul play. "This is a terrible accident," said Interior Minister Mr Vano Merabishvili, after test results on the victims' blood. "It was gas poisoning."
The death comes the week after South Ossetian separatists in the north of the country rejected a plan, brokered by Mr Zhvania, to give them regional autonomy in exchange for recognition of Georgian sovereignty.
Last year South Ossetian soldiers clashed with Georgian units on the boundary of the breakaway north province, one of three rebel enclaves demanding independence.
Mr Zhvania, as one of the top men in the new cabinet, also made enemies because of the government's energetic attack on the Mafia barons they accused of strangling the economy.
President Saakashvili won election after promising to take on the barons. His wide-ranging privatisation deals have upset many powerful business leaders.
Vice-premier Mr Georgy Baramidze, a close ally of Mr Zhvania, is likely to chair cabinet meetings until a new prime minister is named.
Georgia had worked closely with Russia on the proposed South Ossetia autonomy arrangement, and Russian President Vladimir Putin said: "I have lost my closest friend, my most loyal adviser, my biggest ally."
President Saakashvili has seven days to submit his nomination for a new premier to parliament.
Mr Zhvania is survived by his wife and three children.