Second Abkhaz Assassination Suspect Found Dead

Abkhaz leader Aleksandr Ankvab survived an assassination attempt in February.

For the second time in 24 hours, a suspect in an assassination attempt on the leader of Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia has been found dead.

Timur Khutaba was found hanged in his cell in a detention center on April 18.

He was one of four suspects who allegedly tried to kill Abkhaz President Aleksandr Ankvab in February. Two bodyguards were killed in the attack. Khutaba was arrested along with the three other suspects on April 14.

On April 17, another suspect in the assassination attempt, Abkhazia’s former Interior Minister Almazbei Kchach, shot himself after security officers tried to detain him in his apartment in the separatist capital, Sukhumi, according to the authorities.

The Prosecutor-General's Office accused Kchach of masterminding the blast and the shooting that nearly killed Ankvab.

Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in a war in the early 1990s.

Russia recognized Abkhazia and another separatist province, South Ossetia, as independent states after the August 2008 Russia-Georgia war.

Based on reporting by Interfax and izvestia.ru