Georgia's Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania has died, with initial indications the cause was gas poisoning, the ex-Soviet state's Interior Minister said.

"Since he did not answer his telephone for a long period his bodyguard broke through the window ... and found Mr Zhvania's body. We can say that this is a case of gas poisoning," Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said on Georgian television.

Zhvania was found dead at 4:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) on Thursday morning along with an unnamed friend, Merabishvili said.

It was not immediately clear if Zhvania was in his own apartment or elsewhere, or whether he died as a result of foul play.

Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania was found dead in a Tbilisi apartment on Thursday, apparently killed accidentally along with another person by poisoning from gas that leaked from a heating radiator, Interior Minister Nano Merabishvili said. "This was apparently an accident," Merabishvili told reporters after Zhvania's body was discovered in the apartment by his bodyguards, who broke down the door after the prime minister failed to respond to their telephone calls in the early hours of Thursday.

But it's the only one not calling it a possible poisoning.

The prime minister of ex-Soviet Georgia was found dead on Thursday in a bizarre gas poisoning that robs the inexperienced president, Mikhail Saakashvili, of a steadying hand to help run his turbulent country. Zurab Zhvania's bodyguards found the 41-year-old slumped dead in an armchair near a gas heater at a friend's apartment, said Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili. "This is a tragic accident ... It was a gas poisoning," he said.

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