World Peace Herald, DC
Jamestown Foundation
Aug 1 2005
Georgia accuses Russia of terrorism
By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Published August 1, 2005
TBILISI, Georgia — Georgia’s Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili
has identified a Russian military intelligence agent behind a bombing
in Gori.
Three policemen were killed in the February 1 car bombing. The Georgian
daily Rezonansi said that Merabishvili named Anatolii Sysoev as a
member of Russia’s Main Intelligence Administration (GRU — Glavnoye
Razvedovatelnoye Upravlenie).
Merabishvili said that Georgian security officials in South
Ossetia arrested three other persons suspected in carrying out the
attack. “According to our information, a year and half ago colonel
of the Russia’s GRU Anatoly Sisoev set up a group of saboteurs which,
according to our information, was trained on the territory of Russia.
This group has carried out the terrorist act here in Gori,” he said.
Gia Valiev and Gia Zasiev were arrested in the Tskhinvali region.
Police also arrested Joseb Kochiev, who allegedly bought a car shortly
before the terrorist act in which an explosive was detonated.
Merabishvili met with the Russian Ambassador in Georgia on July 25
and gave him all the materials of the investigation.
Anatoly Sysoev was born in 1950 in Tbilisi and served in the
GRU military intelligence. In 1992 Sysoev officially resigned
from the GRU, departing for Azerbaijan where participated in the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 1992-1995 as a head of field intelligence
of the Azerbaijani field artillery. In 1995 Sysoev was arrested by
Azerbaijan on treason charges.
Azerbaijani police charged Sysoev in an assassination attempt on
Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliev by blowing up his airplane with an
IGLA man-portable anti-aircraft missile. Sysoev received a 15-year
jail sentence, which was later reduced to 10 years. In 2001 he was
granted amnesty and left for Ukraine.
Sysoev returned to the region in 2002 as a military advisor to
South Ossetian president Eduard Kokoev. Merabishvili noted that the
three Goribomb blast suspects said that Sysoev was training a group
of approximately 120 saboteurs in South Ossetia and that his group
possessed at least four IGLA missiles. Russian Defense Minister Sergey
Ivanov labeled “depressingly stupid” media reports on the possible
participation of GRU agents in terrorist acts abroad, including the
one in Gori.