Sokhumi Defies Tbilisi’s Warning over Detained Journalist

A Georgian journalist and two other persons will not be released and will be brought to trial despite President Saakashvili’s “impulsive ultimatums,” Abkhaz leader’s spokesman said.

Journalist of the Tbilisi-based Mze TV, Malkhaz Basilaia, and two other Georgians, were arrested and charged by the Abkhaz side for “illegal crossing the border” on February 26.

“We want to remind the Georgian leadership that the language of ultimatums is unacceptable for us,” Apsnipress news agency quoted Bzhania as saying. “Our position regarding the detainees, including the Georgian journalist, remains unchanged.” 

On February 27 President Saakashvili warned that Georgian police would intervene if the Abkhaz side refused to immediately release the detainees. “I want to tell [Abkhaz leader] Sergey Bagapsh and let him listen to me well – I will tell him in the Georgian language, which he knows well –he will either immediately order his illegal militia to stop torturing the Georgian journalist and release him, the kidnapped journalist, or I, the president of Georgia, will give a lawful order to Georgian police to release Basilia [the journalist], who is jailed in Sokhumi. Now, it is up to Bagapsh to decide and I demand this without any preconditions.” 

Meanwhile, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, who met with the Abkhaz leadership in Sokhumi on February 27, said it would not be helpful to speculate on the circumstances surrounding the arrest of a Georgian journalist and two other people.

Arbour said that the detainees had been visited by Sokhumi-based UN human rights officers and the UN observers’ local human rights office was following the situation. She also said that she had no information when the three would be released.

“Frankly, I think, it is not particularly helpful to speculate about the circumstances of this particular case. I think what is helpful is that there is human rights office engagement on the issue and it will be followed and I think it is prudent to wait until we know what the facts are before drawing conclusions,” she said at a news conference in Tbilisi on Wednesday evening, following her return from Sokhumi.

When asked for her opinion on the arrest of the journalist, she replied: “I do not have any opinion about the circumstances surrounding the arrest of the journalist, because I do not form an opinion until I have facts; I do not have the facts.”

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