The World - News from May 25, 1989

A French humanitarian group withdrew part of its claim about the use of toxic gas during street protests last month in Soviet Georgia in which 19 people were killed. A statement by Medecins sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) said autopsies on 16 victims identified Chloropicrine as one of the gases used by authorities in Tbilisi to disperse 10,000 protesters. However, the group said its doctors were denied full access to Soviet autopsy reports. “It is highly probable that it (Chloropicrine) was used, but until we have the results of a biological analysis performed on an organ of a victim, it is impossible to say with complete certitude,” Dr. Benoit Nemery, a Belgian toxicologist, told reporters in Paris.