Police Detain Tbilisi Bank Robber

During a special operation on April 16, Police detained Nikoloz Tsurtsumia, an armed assailant who broke into the Bank of Georgia building in Tbilisi’s Avlabari district early in the afternoon, holding seven citizens captive for some two hours. All hostages were gradually released, and no one was harmed during the incident, the Interior Ministry reported.

Tsurtsumia, according to Georgian media reports, as well as his lawyer, was armed with a pneumatic weapon that he had got on credit from a shop.

According to the Interior Ministry, a criminal investigation has been launched under Article 144 of the Criminal Code, which punishes hostage-taking by imprisonment for a term of thirteen to eighteen years, and Article 236,  illegal purchase, storage, and carrying of firearms, also punishable by imprisonment for a term of eight to eleven years. The detainee is expected to be officially charged today.