Georgian police arrested a 75-year-old woman who single-handedly cut off Internet connections in Georgia and neighbouring Armenia, the interior ministry in Tbilisi said on Wednesday.

The pensioner was digging for scrap metal when she hacked into a fibre-optic cable which runs through Georgia to Armenia, forcing many thousands of Internet users in both countries offline for several hours on March 28.

"She found the cable while collecting scrap metal and cut it to with a view to stealing it," Georgian interior ministry spokesman Zura Gvenetadze told AFP.

The woman who was arrested in the village of Ksani has been charged with damaging property and could face up to three years in prison if convicted.

"Taking into account her advancing years, she has been released pending the end of the investigation and subsequent trial," Gvenetadze said.

Many Georgians' Internet connections were also briefly cut in 2009 by another scavenger who damaged the fibre-optic cable while hunting for scrap metal in the impoverished ex-Soviet state.

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