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Ossetian KGB Major Arrested for Spying
The South Ossetian KGB has uncovered archives left behind by the Georgian special services in enclaves seized from the Georgians. There they found files on Ossetians working for Georgia. The first arrest due to those files has been made. Maj. Timur Guchmazov of the KGB border service was arrested for treason. There are other suspects as well. Guchmazov’s family says he was framed. Human rights activists say that the files can be used to get rid of South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity’s opponents.
The villages of Tamarasheni, Kurta and Kekhvi were under Georgian control before the war. In the building former occupied by the Georgian Ministry of State Security in Tamarasheni, a database of Ossetian agents and audio cassettes of negotiations with them were found. The South Ossetian KGB initiated a criminal case under article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“State treason”). A municipal court in Tskhinvsali issued a warrant for the arrest of Guchmazov.
Guchmazov recounted under questioning that he became acquainted with a certain Sasha in 2005. They made a deal for Sasha to bring new films on DVD and tools for Guchmazov to sell in the marketplace in Tskhinvali (Georgians could not trade there themselves, so their deal was a typical one). Sasha also asked about the mood in the city, the condition of the roads and checkpoints along the road from Tbilisi. Later, he began to ask Guchmazov about his work, his salary and his bosses. “I didn’t understand that he was a special services agent in our first meetings,” Guchmazov said. “When he was interested in people, it did so during business in conversations that didn’t really mean anything.”
After Guchmazov became suspicious of Sasha and began avoiding him, Sasha told him that their conversations had been recorded and the recordings would be sent to his supervisors if he did not continue to cooperate. They met five or six times after that, and Sasha asked about Ossetian attitudes toward the pro-Georgian South Ossetian administration of Dmitry Sanakoev, Russian owned businesses in South Ossetia and the wages paid in those businesses. Guchmazov received $2500 for his information. The South Ossetian KGB suspects that Guchmazov may have told the Georgian about South Ossetian radar stations as well.
Guchmazov’s wife Izeta told Kommersant that her husband was taken into custody in Vladikavkaz, where they live, after they had returned from vacation in Pitsunda, Abkhazia. He was then taken to Tskhinvali. Guchmazov participated in the first Georgian-Ossetian war and had worked for the Tskhinvali police since 2005. He was in their apartment in Tskhinvali when the Georgian attack began in August and was able to save the five-story building from fire after it was hit by a rocket. Izeta Guchmazova thought that his failure to show up at work that day was the motivation for his arrest. She has seen her husband and said that there was no secret material in the recordings made by Sasha, although Guchmazov speaks unfavorably of South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity.
Guchmazov’s lawyer, Marina Kochieva, said that his transfer to Tskhinvali was illegal. “Guchmazov is a citizen of Russia,” she pointed out, “and under its constitution Russia does not deport its citizens.” She also noted that the charges were made before the recordings were seen by experts. They cassettes are now being examined in Moscow. Dmitry Sanakoev told Kommersant that “I can swear before God that there were no lists there and we did not engage in that kind of work. By all appearances, there is a terror against sensible people who want peace with Georgia in Tskhinvali under the pretext of exposing agents on a nonexistent list.”
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 11, 2008
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