Georgia releases two more Russian inmates and a citizen of South Ossetia

Today, in Ergneti village, on the border with South Ossetia, Georgia has handed over three prisoners to the officers of the frontier service of the South Ossetia's KGB.

Two of the released persons - Zaurbek Khestanov, born in 1986, a native of the city of Alagir of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, and Timur Amzoev, born in 1950, a native of the city of Dzerzhinsk, Nizhni Novgorod Region, - are citizens of Russia. The third one - Goneri Toroshelidze, born in 1981, a native of Artsev village, - is a citizen of South Ossetia.

In the course of his meeting with journalists, Zaurbek Khestanov said that he was urged to give up Russian citizenship and promised an apartment in Georgia and training at a prestigious university.

Timur Amzoev said, in his turn, that he could not get to his homeland as Georgia keeps his document and his own "Niva" car, with which he was detained in August 2009, when bringing his grandson for studying in Georgia.

According to all the released persons, their relatives know nothing about the fact yet.

According to Vladimir Dzhugeli, head of the regional police Shida Kartli, three other Ossetians will be handed over to the Tskhinvali party today in the afternoon. After their release, the Georgian party will have no more Ossetian prisoners out of those who were arrested after the August War and whose arrest was confirmed by the Georgian party.

As to the released persons, most of them were serving their terms or were under judicial hearings. All their cases were criminal, including article on illegal firearm storage, the "Georgia Online" reports.

On March 29, the Georgian authorities also released three citizens of South Ossetia, illegally detained and kept under forged charges. The authorities of South Ossetia regard the release of the above prisoners to be a PR action dated to the start of the tenth round of Geneva debates about safety in Transcaucasia.