Four violators of the boundary of the Republic of South Ossetia, detained by the South-Ossetian frontier-guards on 18 May, today have been handed over to the representatives of the European Union and Georgia after the meeting within the framework of the Mechanisms on prevention the incidents on the state border. It has been reported IA "Res" by the Deputy Plenipotentiary of the President of the RSO on the post conflict settlement Merab Chigoev. "On 18 May one more violator - a citizen of Georgia – who had been detained two days earlier, - was handed over with the other ones. It is, on our part, a humanitarian act, which has to be appreciated ", - has emphasized Chigoev. He has noted that the abovementioned meeting took place in the village Dvani (Georgia) not far from the state border of the Republic of South Ossetia and Georgia on the initiative of the representatives of the mission of the observers of EU for discussing the incident of 18 May.
As reported by Chigoev, «the representatives of Georgia and the mission of the observers of EU participated in the meeting. We have confirmed that this incident took place and that we have the arguments of violating the boundary. Besides, our frontier-guards have been attacked". A range of the Georgian mass media and the representatives of the official structures of some foreign countries have also declared that the Russian frontier-guards, ostensibly, assaulted the peaceful citizens of Georgia and opened fire on them. Chigoev has disproved these statements, having declared that this does not correspond to the reality. "The reality is that the citizens of Georgia have violated the boundary of South Ossetia and also in assaulting the South-Ossetian border-guards while they were convoying the Georgian violators; the attackers were diffused by return fire. The actions of the border guard detachment are recognized absolutely legal by the corresponding bodies and there is no any offense on their part", - he has emphasized. Chigoev has noted that "the Georgian side, tried to deny the fact of the assault, but we have firmly persisted on the fact to be proved and it is out of court". As he says, some material evidences prove this fact. "At the place of the incident the operational –investigative group has found out two empty cartridge cases with typical scent of gunpowder and one patron from smoothbore weapon, which had misfired and was thrown away by the violators. Both the facts of violating the state border of the Republic of South Ossetia, and the fact of the armed attack upon the South-Ossetian border guard detachment have been confirmed. All these real evidences have been discovered on the territory of South Ossetia", - has said Chigoev. "On the request of the EU we are ready to give evidences at the next meeting, including video recording of examining the place of the event, and video recording interrogation of the boundary violators. The only thing that causes regret – the people « have been wounded in the course of repulsing the attack, - has said Chigoev. The Deputy Plenipotentiary has offered to develop measures for expelling the similar incidents in future both on the South-Ossetian and on the Georgian part. "It means conducting the preventive-explanatory work with the local Georgian population. The violation of the boundary leads to administrative, and sometimes to criminal responsibility. We have offered the representatives of the EU mission to join this work ", - has said the respondent. In turn, according to Chigoev, the representatives of the EU have offered to conduct one more extraordinary meeting within the framework of MPRI. "South Ossetia will agree provided that there are reached the concrete aims at the meeting", - has explained Chigoev. We should remind that on 18 May, near the village Lopan in Znaurskiy region a group of the Georgian citizens, residing on the territory of South Ossetia illegally, were detained by the border guards of the Border service of KGB of South Ossetia. At the moment of detention, the border-guards have undergone the gun fire on the part of the unknown persons, who were dispersed by return fire of the border-guards and managed to escape on the territory of Georgia. Four violators of the state border have been detained in the course of the incident. After the investigating actions they were handed over to the representatives of the law-enforcement bodies of Georgia in accordance with the established order.
