Former South-Ossetian captives assert that they saw Ikaev, registered as missing, in Georgian prison

There are witnesses in South Ossetia, who saw and talked with Rodion Ikaev, who was kidnapped on August 8, 2008, and since then was regarded as a person who had disappeared in the territory of Georgia. The Georgian party has never recognized these facts.

Tengiz Bakaev, a villager from Bakaty-kau, Znaur District, and Oleg Tegkaev, a resident of Khetagurovo village, Tskhinvali District, South Ossetia, who had been captured by Georgian soldiers and later released, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent about how they had been kept as hostages and that they had seen the missing Rodion Ikaev, 33.

In particular, a South-Ossetian law enforcer Oleg Tegkaev, who was with other detained Ossetians, saw Ikaev when the latter was brought to their cell.

"Radik (Rodion) Ikaev was brought the fifth to our cell. He had traces of beating: swollen lips and dried blood over his face. He complained of pain in the upper side of his left lung and had problems with breathing. I think he had broken ribs," said Tegkaev.

"We were kept in that cell until August 10, 2008. When it was dark, all the 18 detainees from South Ossetia were brought out of cells and ordered to take the buses parked nearby," the former captive remembered. Their travel ended at the military base in Vaziani, Georgia. According to his story, he was beaten en route.

Oleg Tegkaev has added that on August 21 Georgians began releasing some of the detainees, starting with five elderly persons. "Already on August 22 the remaining detainees, including me, were put into a bus," he said. "When the bus stopped in Igoeti (Georgia), some Georgians entered the bus and called out the names of five persons; they got out; and I surely remember Radik Ikaev among them." Oleg asserts that he never saw him again.

So far, there is no comment of the Georgian party to this end.