Georgia calls on break away S. Ossetia to release detained Georgian

42-year-old Malkhaz Akhvlediani was detained on January 31 and charged with “illegal crossing” into the breakaway region, according to the Georgian Interior Ministry.

It said that by arresting Akhvlediani, authorities in the breakaway region ignored “the agreement reached within the framework of Geneva talks on incident prevention and response mechanisms which implies immediate release of citizens in case of accidental crossing of the administrative border.”

This arrest is the recent one in series of detentions of citizens by the both sides across the administrative border line.

The Georgian police detained a resident of the breakaway region, Genady Pliev, on January 4. The Georgian side claimed that he was carrying a firearm and hand-grenades.

But EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), which investigated the case, expressed “serious doubt” that Pliev was carrying weapon at the time of his arrest.

“The EUMM has repeatedly expressed the view that people who cross the administrative boundary lines should be dealt with by administrative, not judicial actions,” EUMM said on January 25.

/Georgian Times/