Tbilisi resident fined in South Ossetia

Georgian citizen Shota Karkuzashvili was released after he had paid a fine for breaking the border, reported the South-Ossetian KGB (Committee for State Security).

On October 18, officials of the migration control service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for South Ossetia detained a Georgian citizen on the south-western outskirts of Tskhinvali and handed him over to KGB border guards, the press service of the KGB for South Ossetia reports.

"The detainee was identified as Shota Karkuzashvili, a resident of Tbilisi, born in 1982. On October 19, the Tskhinvali District Court pronounced the decision to bring the detainee to administrative responsibility in the form of a fine. After the Georgian citizen had paid the fine, he was deported to Georgia," reports the KGB for South Ossetia on its Facebook page.

According to the KGB for South Ossetia, in September, the border guards detained 42 people. Of them, 26 people violated the border "for domestic purposes," 10 others planned to visit their relatives in South Ossetia, four others made hikes, and the remaining two persons crossed the border "to visit a medical institution in Georgia."

"Measures of administrative influence were applied against the border violators, and explanatory activities were carried out. Nine border violators were expelled from the republic. In total, the treasury got 63,000 roubles as the fines paid by border violators," the KGB reports.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on June 30, at a meeting with the chiefs of the Russian FSB Border Guard Service and the South-Ossetian KGB Border Service, Anatoly Bibilov, President of South Ossetia, demanded to prevent "illegal crossing of the border by Georgian citizens."

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.