Georgia to issue statement on Bush grenade report
Georgian authorities were expected to issue a statement today on the report of a possible attempt to throw a hand grenade at US President George Bush during his speech in the capital Tbilisi.
US Secret Service spokesman Jonathan Cherry said his agency had been informed that a device, possibly a hand grenade, had been thrown within 100 feet of the stage during Bush’s speech, hit someone in the crowd and fallen to the ground.
Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Guram Donadze said no grenade was thrown close to Bush, calling the report a lie. He later said the secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council, Gela Bezhuashvili, would make an announcement about the report later in the day.
Security was very tight at Bush’s speech on Tuesday in Freedom Square: Georgian police were roaming around, and US snipers were visible on the rooftops, scanning the crowd with binoculars.
US agents, together with their Georgian counterparts, manned the security gates, making even Georgian performers – who in some cases were decked out with fake ammunition as part of their costumes – remove every piece of metal before passing through the detectors.
Many in the crowd were carrying plastic soda bottles, which they used to squirt water on each other to stave off the heat after hours of standing without shelter under the bright sun.
There were many young people horsing around during the speeches – especially when the translation was muffled and the speech unintelligible – and some threw plastic bottles at one another for entertainment.
