Police in Georgia arrested a former lawmaker Monday on charges of plotting a coup amid a political crisis in the ex-Soviet state four years ago, the interior ministry said.

Former lawmaker Valery Gelbakhiani was accused of conspiring to overthrow the government by force after he was covertly filmed by security officers allegedly discussing a plot to provoke mass unrest after presidential elections in 2008.

He fled the country but was "detained while crossing the Georgia-Armenia border" on Monday, police said in a statement.

Gelbakhiani was an ally of opposition tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili, formerly Georgia's richest man and one of the leaders of an opposition movement that took to the streets in 2007, prompting a police crackdown.

Patarkatsishvili ran against pro-Western leader Mikheil Saakashvili in the 2008 elections but only polled seven percent of the vote and died of a heart attack in Britain a month later.

Another former associate of Patarkatsishvili and the current leader of the opposition Christian-Democratic party, Giorgi Targamadze, alleged that the case against Gelbakhiani was politically motivated and had no legal basis.

"This is a continuation of Valery Gelbakhiani's four-year-long persecution by the National Movement (governing party) and (President) Mikheil Saakashvili," Targamadze said in televised comments.  -AFP