Senior Abkhaz Military Official Killed

Eduard Emin-Zade, chief of the Abkhaz defense ministry’s intelligence unit, was found dead in the Gali region on October 23, the Abkhaz official news agency, Apsnipress, reported.

Abkhaz officials said that Emin-Zade was killed in a houses in the town of Gali late on October 22. Deputy Defense Minister of the breakaway region Anatoly Zaitsev said that Emin-Zade was in Gali investigating recent terrorist acts in the region. He said that the murdered military official was in the house of a local resident together with six other persons. Two of them were also killed, he said. One of the victims was the house owner, Zaitsev added.

Abkhaz leader Sergey Bagapsh convened an emergency session of the National Security Council following the murders.

"We believe the killing of Eduard Emin-Zade is the latest terrorist attack by Georgia," Abkhaz Defense Minister Merab Kishmaria was quoted as saying by Russian news agency, Interfax.

Officials in Tbilisi have denied the allegation.

In June 2008, Emin-Zade survived what appeared to be an assassination attempt, when he was slightly injured after his car came under gun fire in the Abkhaz capital, Sokhumi.

Officials from the Tbilisi-loyal Abkhaz government-in-exile have claimed that the murder of the influential Abkhaz military official could have been linked to an internal power struggle between Abkhaz “criminal groups.”

In a separate incident, Abkhaz officials reported that the village of Tagiloni on the administrative border in the Gali region came under fire from the Georgian side at about 8am local time on October 23. Apsnipress reported quoting an Abkhaz security official that the shooting stopped after Abkhaz forces returned fire.

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