Lado Bitchashvili, Shida Kartli
On May 15, the 86th meeting in the frame of the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism was held in Ergneti village, which lasted nine hours. The main issue discussed during the meeting was Archil Tatinashvili’s death. Representatives of the Government of Georgia stated that Archil Tatunashvili was killed and de-facto authority of Tskhinvali shall transfer them all documents, including the internal organs of Tatunashvili.
“Our goal is to investigate Tatunashvili’s case substantially, to identify perpetrators and punish them. We need to have all evidence, as well as internal organs of Tatunashvili, which we have not received yet. Unless they give us necessary evidence and organs, our doubts over the murder will get stronger,” the head of the analytic service of the MIA Kakhaber Kemoklidze said.
After the meeting, representative of the Ossetian side Murat Jyoev made comments with media, who said it is not their responsibility to deliver organs of Tatunashvili to the Georgian side and clarified that the Russian Expertise Bureau carried out all procedures according to their methodology and they do not have additional information.
“Ossetian side was not interested in the death of Tatunashvili. It was natural incident – he died of heart failure. He was more interesting witness for the special services of South Ossetia because he was acting according to the instructions of the Georgian special service and we had questions to him but unfortunately now we cannot ask those questions to anybody. It is groundless to blame South Ossetia in the murder. Georgian side does not have different expertise conclusion so all your statements are only assumptions,” Murat Jyoev said.
It is not clear whether Tskhinvali de-facto government will satisfy the request of the GoG. Georgian authority expects to receive any kind of materials from the opposite side, which will assist substantial investigation into Tatunashvili’s death fact.
“Unless Tskhinvali de-facto authority cooperates with the GoG, it will increase our doubts over Tatunashvili’s murder, which is already verified with the delayed transfer of the corpse and removal of internal organs,” Kakhaber Kemoklidze of MIA said.
He added that after the Samkharauli National Expertise Bureau of Georgia delivers the conclusion on the causes of Tatunashvili’s death, the GoG will have final position and concrete claims.