Georgia Presses Separatists To Free Prominent Doctor

Georgia demanded Tuesday the release of a doctor whose detention by separatist forces in a Russian-backed statelet has fuelled tension between arch-foes Tbilisi and Moscow

Tbilisi, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Dec, 2019 ) :Georgia demanded Tuesday the release of a doctor whose detention by separatist forces in a Russian-backed statelet has fuelled tension between arch-foes Tbilisi and Moscow.

Prominent trauma specialist Vazha Gaprindashvili was arrested in mid-November and accused of crossing illegally into the Russian-controlled breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Gaprindashvili, who was detained by Russian border guards, faces up to two years in prison if convicted.

South Ossetia was at the centre of a 2008 Russian-Georgian conflict that saw Russian troops rout Georgian forces in just five days.

Georgia's foreign ministry said it would demand Gaprindashvili's "immediate release" during internationally mediated Russian-Georgian talks at UN headquarters in Geneva that began Tuesday.

Hundreds of people also rallied outside the UN office in Tbilisi to call for the doctor's liberation.

The United Nations, most Western capitals and international rights groups have already pushed for Gaprindashvili's release as well.

He went to South Ossetia to treat a patient in a village that lacks medical facilities, according to Georgia's security service.

Russian border guards who patrol the de facto South Ossetian border took Gaprindashvili to the region's main city, Tskhinvali, the service said.

He has been charged with "illegally crossing the state border" under Russia's penal code and is now in pre-trial detention for two months.

Georgia's foreign ministry said his detention highlighted "alarming" human rights violations in "the occupied territories." Multiple media reports have charged that prisoners in South Ossetia are mistreated.

Last year, a Georgian man died in a Tskhinvali prison and his mutilated body was returned to his family following months of international pressure.

The man suffered 100 separate injuries, forensic experts have said.

During the 2008 clash, Russia occupied swathes of Georgian territory and bombed military and civilian targets across the small Caucasus nation.

Gaprindashvili treated Russian pilots who had been shot down by Tbilisi's air defence, according to his hospital.

Russia subsequently established military bases in South Ossetia and another separatist territory, Abkhazia, and recognised them as independent states.

Since 2008, Russian border guards have detained more than 1,000 Georgian nationals for crossing into South Ossetia, Georgia's security service says.