24 November 2009, 20:00
Georgia transfers three detainees to Russia
Georgia has sent the three citizens detained in the border with South Ossetia back to Russia.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that citizens of Russia Alexander Borkov, born in 1988, Alexander Popov, born in 1990, and Maxim Berezov, born in 1988, were detained in Zemo Nikozi village, Gori District, yesterday, on November 23, at about 3:30 p.m. Moscow time.
As reported by Shota Utiashvili, head of the information-analytical department of Georgia's MIA, the delivery of the detainees took place at Ergneti village. The "GHN" Information Agency adds that Russian citizens were handed over to the Russian party with assistance of the Mission of Observers of the European Union.
One of the detainees - Maxim Berezin - told journalists that he and his friends had come to Tskhinvali from Krasnodar for working fir the television centre: "We went for a walk and occasionally crossed the border, and could not understand where we were."
Georgian MPs treated the fact of transfer in the positive: they noted that Georgia should not look like "the Russia's occupational regime in South Ossetia" and the "marionette authorities", who detained four Georgian teenagers on November 4 and still keep them in Tskhinvali prison, the "Rosbalt" reports.