Georgia charges 13 with coup plot

Some 29 people were arrested in the raids on Wednesday

Thirteen opposition activists in Georgia have been charged with conspiring to overthrow the government.

They are among 29 people arrested across Georgia on Wednesday.

Among them are prominent members of two small pro-Russian opposition parties - the Justice Party and the Conservative Monarchists.

They deny the charges of planning to bring the former head of Georgian state security, Igor Giorgadze, back from Russia to take power.

Mr Giorgadze fled Georgia after being accused of trying to assassinate then President Eduard Shevardnadze in 1995 - a charge he denies.

Lawyers for those arrested deny the coup accusations, saying the arrests amount to political persecution.

'Show of strength'

Mr Giorgadze has given several interviews to the Russian media since the raids.

He has suggested that the Georgian government is trying to boost its popularity ratings with a show of strength and intimidate the opposition before the forthcoming local elections in October, the BBC's Matthew Collin reports from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.

He has called for a campaign of civil disobedience in Georgia.

But the two opposition parties targeted in the raids are relatively marginal, and do not attract widespread support for their advocacy of stronger links to Russia, our correspondent adds.

The incident has however added to the tensions between Georgia and Russia, with allegations from one senior Georgian politician that one of the small parties was financed by the Russian secret services.

Speaking to journalists in Moscow, the speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, Boris Gryzlov, responded to the incident by saying that the Georgian government was becoming authoritarian.