Equipment for Abkhaz TV Stolen in Georgia

Four armed, masked men have seized a vehicle carrying equipment for a planned new Abkhaz TV station and stolen the equipment, both Abkhaz and Georgian officials said.

Ruslan Kishmaria, the Abkhaz leader?s envoy in the Gali district of breakaway Abkhazia, said the robbery occurred on September 20 in the Zugdidi district, next to Abkhazia, close to a Georgian police post. The Abkhaz side has said the theft was no ordinary crime and has accused the Georgian side of being behind it.

Tornike Kilanava, an official from the Tbilisi-backed Abkhaz government-in-exile, has confirmed that ?expensive equipment? was stolen.

The new television station will target mostly the predominately Georgian-populated Gali district of Abkhazia. The project is considered ?strategically important? by the Abkhaz authorities in terms of integrating the ethnic Georgian population of the Gali district into the Abkhaz state.

Despite the incident, Kishmaria said, the TV station would still go on air as planned, on September 24.

He said that the equipment had been donated by the London-based non-governmental organization, Conciliation Resources (CR). The group has worked on Abkhaz conflict issues since 1997.

?Unfortunately,? Kishmaria said. ?the equipment was sent to us via Georgia.?

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