MOSCOW, February 21 - RAPSI. The Basmanny District Court of Moscow has approved the arrest in absentia of Georgian politician Givi Targamadze, who is charged with organizing mass riots in Russia.

The court thus upheld the prosecution's motion to impose pre-trial restrictions in absentia.

The court's statement says that Targamadze has regularly consulted opposition movements in several countries and will continue this criminal activity and, unless detained, may eventually carry out all his plans to hold mass riots in Russia.

Targamadze has been put on the federal and international wanted list. The investigation established that he is hiding in Georgia.

Targamadze has been charged with organizing riots, alongside opposition activists Sergei Udaltsov, Konstantin Levedev and Leonid Razvozzhayev.

Investigative Committee spokesperson Vladimir Markin earlier said the investigators had evidence at their disposal confirming that Targamadze had helped to finance the Russian opposition, as well as to organize the mass public unrest in Moscow's Bolotnaya Square on May 6.

The Georgian Prosecutor General's Office declared that Targamadze's extradition is out of the question, as it is forbidden by the Georgian Constitution.

The case was initiated after the "Anatomy of Protest 2" documentary film was shown on the NTV broadcasting network. The film claimed that the opposition was organizing a coup using funds from abroad and showed Left Front movement coordinator Udaltsov and his companions allegedly talking with Targamadze, who at the time headed Georgia's Parliamentary Defense and Security Committee, and is said to have been involved in planning the "color" revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine, as well as the mass riots in Belarus.

Razvozzhayev issued a full confession in which he described how he, Udaltsov, Lebedev and others organized mass riots in Russia, as well as detailing his involvement in mass riots on Bolotnaya Square on May 6.

He also stated that all this was financed by Targamadze. However, he later claimed that he had been forced to make this confession under torture.