TBILISI, Georgia – A man who confessed to throwing a live grenade toward President Bush (search) during a rally in Georgia intended its shrapnel to hit the area where the president and others were standing, the suspect said video footage broadcast Saturday.
"I threw the grenade, not directly at where there was bulletproof glass, but toward the heads ... so that the shrapnel would fly behind the bulletproof glass, you understand?" Vladimir Arutyunian (search) said.
Bush and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili (search) were on a podium protected with bulletproof glass at a massive rally in Tbilisi in May when the grenade was thrown and landed about 100 feet away. It did not explode and investigators later said its activation device apparently had malfunctioned.
The footage showing Arutyunian, who was arrested Wednesday after a shootout that left one policeman dead, was broadcast by Georgia's Rustavi-2 television. The station said it had been provided by the Interior Ministry.
Arutyunian, 27, has been charged with murder in the policeman's death, but no charges have been filed in connection with the May grenade incident, to which he previously confessed.
Arutyunian was wounded during the shootout and has been in a hospital since his arrest.
Investigators were still searching for a motive in the case.
The Interior Ministry said Friday that Arutyunian was believed to have been a member of the Agordzineba party, which supported the leader of a region largely outside central government control.
Aslan Abashidze (search), leader of the Adzharia region, fled to Russia last year amid rising street protests against his authoritarian rule.
The unrest erupted after Abashidze destroyed bridges linking Adzharia with the rest of Georgia and claimed that Saakashvili was preparing a military invasion.
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