Official Tskhinvali protests against detention of South-Ossetian woman in Georgia

In Tbilisi, Khatuna Charaeva, a resident of the Leningor District of South Ossetia, was detained with 30,000 counterfeit US dollars on her. Boris Chochiev, Plenipotentiary of President of South Ossetia on post-conflict settlement, said that "the Georgian authorities have started applying a new method of creating intolerable life conditions for the population of the area."

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports that Charaeva was detained on December 20. "Together with her son-in-law and her son she arrived in Tbilisi to visit the marketplace and sell her agricultural products there; however, she was approached by Georgian policemen, who, allegedly, found counterfeit 30,000 dollars in her bag. She was detained, and both her relatives were set free," Guram Sobaev, spokesman of the Plenipotentiary's office, told the "Interfax".

Mr Chochiev has noted that in order to prevent the practice of continued detentions and kidnappings of South-Ossetian residents "the passage regime across the frontier of South Ossetia should be gradually toughened for the sake of safety, up to its complete closing."

So far, Tbilisi has given no comments on this information.

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