Georgian president to convene Security Council over fellow citizen's murder by Abkhazian border guard
TBILISI. May 25 (Interfax) - Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili is planning to convene a session of the National Security Council over the death of a Georgian citizen on the border with Abkhazia on May 19, Georgian President's Press Secretary Eka Mishveladze said at a briefing on Wednesday.
The Security Council session will be held "in the very near future," she said.
Meanwhile, Margvelashvili on Wednesday, discussed the incident on the border with Abkhazia with the Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Lambert Zannier, who is currently on a visit to Tbilisi.
At the meeting, Margvelashvili said that the killing of the Georgian civilian in the village of Khurcha by an Abkhazian border guard was part of "the occupation problem," the president's press office said.
Margvelashvili called for condemnation of the incident.
Earlier the Georgian Foreign Ministry said that Georgia is going to discuss the Khurcha incident with Sukhum representatives at what would be the parties' first meeting after four years in the framework of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanisms (IPRMs), to take place in Gali.
Meanwhile, the Abkhazian Prosecutor General's Office said it is investigating an incident on the border with Georgia, which resulted in the death of a citizen of the neighboring republic.
"A criminal case has been opened against a military service member of the Abkhazian border troops, R. Kandzhi-ogly, as per Article 99 part one (premeditated murder) of the Republic of Abkhazia Criminal Code," a spokesperson for the republic's Prosecutor General's Office told Interfax last Friday.
The incident on the Abkhazian-Georgian border occurred on May 19, on the grounds of the Nabakia checkpoint, the spokesperson said.
"Preliminary data suggest that two men without identification documents attempted to cross the border from Georgian territory. One of them obeyed the demands of the Abkhazian border guard and returned; but the other, being drunk, started a fight. At first, the Abkhazian border guard fired a warning shot into the air, but when the assailant started threatening explosion and reached for his waistband, he [the border guard] was compelled to use his weapon," the spokesperson said.
The victim was taken to a hospital in Zugdidi (Georgia) where he died from his injuries, according to the Georgian media.
"Investigators have yet to establish whether the border guard acted in accordance with regulations," said the spokesperson for the Abkhazian Prosecutor General's Office.
