Released Georgian journalists confirm that they were in Abkhazia without documents

The Georgian journalists of the TV Company "Mze" Malkhaz Basilaya and David Tsotsoriya, who were released in Abkhazia, have admitted that they had no identification cards on them. They have informed about it at the press conference organized at the Sukhumi UN Office.

Mssrs Basilaya and Tsotsoriya thanked their Abkhazian colleagues for the assistance in their release and stated that no violence was applied to them during the detention.

Answering the question of the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent how the fact should be treated that the authorities and mass media of Georgia had been worrying about the fate of Malkhaz Basilaya only, the latter said that Tsotsoriya has only recently come to work for the TV Company and is a trainee there.

We remind you that today at 11:30 a.m. Moscow time, the Service of State Security of Abkhazia released two Georgian journalists of the TV Company "Mze" Malkhaz Basilaya and David Tsotsoriya and handed them over to employees of the UN Office for Human Rights.

The decision to release the employees of the "Mze" Company was based on the fact that the state border of Abkhazia was broken by the journalists, who evidenced in their indications that they had no other intentions but for professional activities, with account of the appeals of the journalistic community to the president of Abkhazia.