Civil Georgia, Georgie
March 12 2009

Two Spy Suspects Released on Bail

Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 12 Mar.’09 / 15:22

Two citizens of Georgia, arrested and charged with espionage and
setting up of an illegal armed group, have been released on bail,
according to the Georgian Interior Ministry.

`Investigation is ongoing and the case is not closed,’ Shota
Khizanishvili, the interior ministry spokesman, told Civil.Ge on March
12.

Grigol Minasyan and Sarkis Akopjanyan were arrested on January 22; the
Interior Ministry has declined since then to reveal details of the
case. The two men were arrested in Akhaltsikhe, a town in the
Samtskhe-Javakheti region predominantly with ethnic Armenian
population.

The lawyer for the two men, Nino Andriashvili, told IWPR last month
that Minasyan and Akopjanyan were accused of cooperating with a
Belarus-based organization allegedly set up by Russia’s Federal
Security Service, called the Association for Legal Assistance to the
Population (ALAP.) The lawyer also said the two men had admitted being
involved in espionage, but denied a secondary charge of planning to
create a private army.