In South Ossetia, volunteers raise money for fellow countrymen convicted in Georgia

Within the campaign "Stretch a helping hand", volunteers from Tskhinvali have raised 33,864 roubles for convicted citizens of South Ossetia kept in Georgian prisons.

"This campaign has lasted for three months. During this period, non-indifferent citizens were dropping their donations into special boxes. Yesterday, it was decided to collect all the boxes and count the money," said Mikhail Beteev, the chairman of the youth government of South Ossetia.

According to his story, the boxes for fundraising were placed in stores in Tskhinvali. However, the one box was missing. In one of the shops the volunteers were told that several days ago a certain young man came and took away the fundraising box.

All the raised funds will be transferred to the accounts of the inmates kept in Georgia through their relatives, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told at the Department for Youth policy of South Ossetia.

The raised funds will go to Georgiy Zasseev, Soslan Kochiev and Georgiy Valiev, who serve their life-long imprisonment, and to Marik Dudaev, who was sentenced by Georgian authorities to 23 years in prison.

The campaign "Stretch a helping hand" was held in Tskhinvali for the first time. As noted by the above Department, they plan to hold such events in the future.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the citizens of South Ossetia Zasseev, Kochiev and Valiev were found guilty in Georgia for triggering an explosion in Gori on February 1, 2005. Dudaev was charged with premeditated murder of three persons, robbery, illegal possession of weapons and other grave crimes, and was sentenced in 2005 to 23 years in prison.