About two weeks after expiration of deadline for Badri Bitsadze, husband of leader of the May street protest rallies Nino Burjanadze, to post GEL 100,000 bail, the prosecutor’s office requested the court on June 20 to apply pre-trial dentition for him.

The Tbilisi City Court said late on June 20 that it had ruled in favor of the prosecutor’s request.

Bitsadze, who has not been arrested, was charged by the prosecutor’s office on May 30 with spearheading attacks on policemen by an organized group.  On June 1 prosecutor’s office requested court GEL 100,000 bail for Bitsadze to be paid within seven days; no bail has been paid. 

The Georgian law enforcement agencies say that Bitsadze has apparently already left the country.

According to one account provided by an opposition politician from the National Forum party, Gubaz Sanikidze, Bitsadze was briefly in the police hands after the riot police dispersed protest rally on the Rustaveli Avenue on May 26. According to Sanikidze he met with Bitsadze in Shida Kartli region, where as Bitsadze told him, was left by the police in the forest while several of his companions taken by the police..

Burjanadze, who says she is not aware of her husband’s whereabouts, made it clear from the very beginning that was not intending to pay any bail and denied charges brought against her husband as fabricated.