Kokoity on Detained Georgian Teens
Breakaway South Ossetia’s leader, Eduard Kokoity, said he would not use his “constitutional right to pardon” two Georgian teenagers “amid pressure of the so called Georgian leadership.”
As a result of Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg’s mediation Tskhinvali released earlier this month two out of four Georgian teenagers and committed “to pardon” and release two others by the morning of December 13.
According to the remarks posted on website of breakaway region’s authorities, Kokoity says that although “certain agreements” were reached with international mediators on the release of teenagers, “the situation became complicated” because of the Georgian leadership’s rhetoric on the matter.
He made the remarks at a meeting in Tskhinvali with a Georgian journalist, opposition politician and an activist, who paid a previously unannounced visit to the breakaway region’s capital.
Paata Zakareishvili of opposition Republican Party; Vakhtang Komakhidze, an investigative journalist, and Manana Mebuke, head of the Tbilisi-based non-governmental organization working on confidence-building between the communities on the opposite side of administrative border, were also due to meet with detained Georgian teenagers in the Tskhinvali prison.
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