Azernews.Az

TBILISI – Eight opposition supporters in ex-Soviet Georgia have been charged with forming an illegal armed group to bring a fugitive politician back to the country, officials said Thursday, Hurriyet reported.

The interior ministry said the suspects planned to help former defense minister Irakli Okruashvili, who fled after going into opposition and being convicted of corruption, to return to Georgia during anti-government protests last month.

"These eight people and others organized a criminal conspiracy to bring Okruashvili back," interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.

The ministry released videotaped testimony in which one of the suspects said the fugitive politician was to enter the country through the Moscow-backed rebel region of South Ossetia, which was the focus of the Georgia-Russia war in 2008.

But Sozar Subari, an opposition leader linked to Okruashvili, said the arrests were part of a campaign of "repression and terror" by President Mikhail Saakashvili's government.

Okruashvili did not return in May and the protests ended violently when demonstrators were dispersed by riot police and two men were killed by an opposition motorcade fleeing the rally.