A coffin with the purported remains of Georgia's President Gamsakhurdia, who ruled between 1991 and 1992, and who died in mysterious circumstances 14 years ago, was discovered in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Chechnya last Saturday.
"The family of former Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia has addressed the Russian authorities with a request for assistance in transferring his remains from Chechnya and reburying them in his homeland," the ministry said in a statement. "A similar request was received from officials in Tbilisi."
Gamsakhurdia died in mysterious circumstances in 1993 at the age of 54, two years after being ousted and replaced by Eduard Shevardnadze following a civil war. It has not been established to this day whether he was assassinated or committed suicide.
A law enforcement official said earlier that an examination of the remains revealed two holes in the late president's skull, which might have been caused by bullets.
Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, the son of the late Georgian leader said he was sure the remains belonged to his father.
"I have no doubt that it is him. There was a cross, and the soil, which we had brought from Georgia, shoes and a watch in the coffin," he said, adding that he and other family members had put all these objects into the coffin themselves.
For more than a year after his death, Gamsakhurdia's body could not be found. It was recovered in February 1994 and reburied in Grozny, the Chechen capital.
After Mikheil Saakashvili became Georgian president in 2003, he rehabilitated Gamsakhurdia and released his supporters imprisoned during Shevardnadze's rule.
