Georgia Marks Six Years Since Otkhozoria Murder

Marking six-year anniversary of Giga Otkhozoria’s murder on Tbilisi-controlled territory by Abkhazia occupation forces, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said today Georgia continues to use every legal and diplomatic tool available to bring the perpetrators of this “brutal murder” to justice.

The Prime Minister remarked that Otkhozoria, uprooted from Abkhazia, was yet another victim of the “occupying regime.” “Murderers will not escape the punishment,” he said.

“We will never tolerate the criminal occupation that divides the citizens of Georgia from each other and will do our best to end this in a peaceful manner,” PM Garibashvili concluded.

Otkhozoria was killed by Rashid Kanji-Ogli, an Abkhaz serviceman, at the Khurcha-Nabakevi crossing point between Abkhazia’s predominantly ethnic Georgian-populated Gali district and its adjoining Zugdidi district of Samegrelo region.

The Zugdidi City Court found Kanji-Ogli guilty of murder and sentenced him to 12 years in prison in absentia in December 2016.

The Georgian Government drafted the Otkhozoria-Tatunashvili list two years later in June 2018 which blacklisted suspected perpetrators who committed serious crimes against Georgian citizens in the occupied territories since the early 1990s as part of its effort to bring them to justice.

The list became the reason cited by Russian and Abkhaz officials in 2018 when they suspended all talks with Georgia in the format of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanisms (IPRMs), which remains stalled to date.

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