S.Ossetian Reports: Tbilisi Releases Five Ossetians

Tbilisi handed over five Ossetians to the South Ossetian side on December 2 through mediation of Council of Europe’s (CoE) human rights commissioner, Thomas Hammarberg, authorities in breakaway South Ossetia reported.

Shota Utiashvili, head of the Georgian interior ministry’s information and analytical department, declined to comment on this report at this stage.

CoE human rights chief is in Georgia since November 27 negotiating with the authorities in Tskhinvali and Tbilisi to arrange release of detainees, including of four Georgian minors held in Tskhinvali since November 4. He is again in Tskhinvali on December 2 after visiting the breakaway region’s capital on November 30 and series of talks in Tbilisi on December 1.

The breakaway region’s authorities reported that a court hearing in Tskhinvali over the four teenagers’ case, who are accused of “illegal crossing the South Ossetian border and possession of explosives,” will be held on December 2.

Five Ossetians, who Tskhinvali says were released by the Georgian side, are Ibragim Laliev; Lavrenti Kaziev; Vladimir Eloev; Iakob Tekhov and Pavlik Tekhov – most of them detained in October 2008 and one in spring, 2009.

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Russian-language program, Ekho Kavkaza, Shota Utiashvili said in November that in summer, 2009 the Georgian side intended to swap the five men on Georgians held in detention in Tskhinvali, but the exchange failed and since then the five men remain under the police supervision in a private house in the town of Gori.

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