04:49, 5 February 2015

Defendants in case of Zurab Vazagashvili's murder arrested in Tbilisi

On February 4, the Court announced the decision to take into custody eleven former staff members of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) accused of murdering Zurab Vazagashvili and falsifying evidence in the case. Defendants in the case plead not guilty.

Zurab Vazagashvili was killed in May 2006: policemen shot and killed him in a BMW car near tennis courts. According to the police, Zurab Vazagashvili and passengers of the BMW car were plotting an armed assault on one of Tbilisi families. Relatives and friends of the victims denied the version and demanded to carry out a thorough investigation into the case.

On February 4, at the request of prosecutors, the Tbilisi City Court announced the pre-trial restriction measure against all eleven detainees in the form of detention. Grigol Kvinikadze, a former investigator of the Department of Criminal Police of the Georgian MIA, who was involved in the case as the 12^th defendant and who left the country, was also arrested in absentia, the "News-Georgia" reports.

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

Author: Beslan Kmuzov

Source: CK correspondent