Authorities of Georgia and South Ossetia exchange prisoners

Today, the pre-border village of Ergneti saw an exchange of prisoners between South Ossetia and Georgia. In total, 26 persons were transferred; 13 persons on each party.

As reported by Boris Chochiev, the envoy of the president of South Ossetia on post-conflict settlement, "the arrangements were reached at Geneva discussions and meetings within the Mechanism for Incident Warning and Prevention (MIWP)."

The exchange was welcomed by Audronius Azhubalis, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania and the current Chairman of the OSCE.

The released residents of South Ossetia said that there were not harassed in detention for their nationality, although such complaints were received earlier.

Leila Khurieva was detained on her way to the Leningor District on March 20, 2007, and sentenced to eight years in prison under Part 1, Article 260 of the Criminal Code of Georgia (acquisition, storage and transportation of drugs). As she said, her release was a surprise.

"Overall, I spent five years in prison," said Khurieva.

Another woman liberated today - the 35-year-old Leila Meladze (Driyaeva) - was presented the same charges on October 15, 2007.

"Ever since the first war I had a flat in the Georgian city of Gori. On March 20, 2007, I went to Gori aiming to sell the flat. I still don't know who had reported to the police, maybe the neighbours, but on that very day police officers appeared and took me to jail. Later, in court I was charged for drug possession and sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment, of which I've served 4 years," said Meladze.

Her cousin Zurab Djioev said that all the time he knew nothing about the fate of his sister.

"We thought that she had disappeared in Georgia, as we received no news from her. She went to Georgia to sell her real estate and was gone. Her mother got paralyzed and soon died. And then, Leila's father, unable to bear the loss of his daughter and his wife's death, also died. Now she's at large, and the first place, where she wants to go is the grave of her parents," said Djioev.

The released persons also include Genrik Madosyan, Akserbi Khuranov and Abdullah Magomedov. They had come to Tskhinvali for earnings, and not knowing the territory and the border line were detained after they occasionally found themselves in the Georgian territory.

The names of the released Georgian prisoners are still unknown, same as their comments.