ARMENIAN SERVING LIFE TIME FOR TRYING TO KILL GEORGE W. BUSH WANTS TO CONVERT TO ISLAM
ARMENPRESS
Apr 13 2007
TBILISI, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS: An ethnic Armenian citizen of Georgia,
Vladimir Harutunian, sentenced by a court to life in prison for
attempting to kill U.S. President Bush and Georgian President Mikhail
Saakashvili while they were addressing a public audience on Freedom
Square in central Tbilisi on May 10, 2005, said he would like to
convert to Islam, his lawyer Onise Mebonia revealed after visiting
the 31 year-old man in a Georgian tight security prison.
Harutunian was arrested in Tbilisi on July 20, 2005 after a shootout
with Georgian police that resulted in the death of Col. Zurab
Kvlividze, head of the Georgian Interior Ministry’s counterintelligence
department. He was wounded in the shootout receiving three not
life-threatening bullets.
The shootout and detention occurred in the village of Vashlisdzhvari,
outside the capital, Tbilisi. The man lived in an eight-story apartment
building with his mother, and was unemployed. The police operation came
two days after authorities released a photograph of a man suspected
of throwing the grenade, which failed to explode, at a podium where
Bush was speaking May 10 before tens of thousands of people. The
grenade landed less than 100 feet from the podium but did not explode.
Harutunian’s lawyer said the man would like to start also practicing
Yoga, but complained to her of the prison authorities who would
provide him with relating literature. He also demanded a permanent
telephone contact with his mother.