Monday, August 20, 2007, #158 (1425)

Russian experts say evidence against Tbilisi in missile investigation

By Eter Tsotniashvili


The disputed evidence and debris
from the Tsitelubani missile incident


Russia's delegation of experts says the evidence does not bear out Tbilisi's claims about the August 6 missile incident in a report which Georgian officials clearly expected and quickly dismissed.

"After studying the evidence provided by Russians, we have the impression that they are trying to imply that no aircraft flew over the area at all…We are witnessing an obvious attempt to fabricate evidence," said deputy Defense Minister Baku Kutelia.

On August 6, a missile dropped into a field near the village of Tamarasheni, just beyond the South Ossetian conflict zone. It did not explode, and investigative teams have pored over evidence to establish its origin. An initial Georgian statement, OSCE spot report, and findings from an international group of experts all pointed to Russian responsibility.

However, Russian Foreign Ministry special representative Valery Kenyakin, a member of the Russian delegation, said that the radar records Russia gave to Georgia proved Moscow had no hand in the incident.

"The experts' investigation has shown that the Georgian version does not hold up," he said.

Kutelia accused the Russian delegation of avoiding collaboration with the international team, and dismissed the radar records they brought as incomplete.

Russian Air Force chief of staff Igor Khvorov, reiterating statements he made shortly after the missile landed near Tsitelubani, insisted Georgian airspace had not been violated by his planes. And any chance of discovering the origin of the missile, he claimed, was lost when Georgian bomb disposal teams detonated the missile.

"All the evidence is destroyed," Khvorov said at a press conference held in the Russian Embassy in Tbilisi on August 17. "The Georgians are looking at our radars sceptically; and we don't trust Georgian radars either," he added.

Russian experts touched down in Georgia August 16, heading straight for Tsitelubani where they worked for two days. They spoke with Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of the Russian peacekeepers in the South Ossetia conflict zone, who cast doubts on the accounts of eyewitnesses who reportedly claimed the aircraft came from the northeast.

"Georgians only said that they saw military aircraft and that's all," Kulakhmetov said.

Kulakhmetov also reported that people were milling about the crash site when he arrived, violating safety and security standards. Georgian officials were too quick to destroy the warhead, he said, making it impossible to confirm whether there had been any explosives at all.

Tbilisi officials, after inviting Russia to dispatch an investigative team, sought to discredit the chosen delegation-with Khvorov at its head-as they began their work.

"He is the general who said after the incident that the Russian Air Force did not perform any flights that day," said Foreign Affairs Minister Gela Bezhuashvili. "But it turned out later that Russia's Air Force was staging military exercises that very day, so the commander's statement was an outright lie," the minister added.

Nothing the Russian team came up with would have much of an impact, Bezhuashvili suggested. "The independent commission has already presented the results of their investigation," he said.

The commission, working as the Independent Group of Experts (IGE), released its finding last week, before Russia brought its radar records to Georgia. The IGE concluded that an aircraft made three, brief separate incursions into Georgian airspace from Russia before dropping the missile.

The US Embassy in Tbilisi, meanwhile, issued a statement urging the international community to take heed of the "important and credible" IGE report, referring to the missile incident as an "attack." The embassy lauded Tbilisi for being forthcoming and open in cooperating with investigators.

"We welcome the open and obvious cooperation of the Georgian government with the [IGE] assessment, including responding to the [IGE's] requests for access to available evidence and facilities to confirm the evidence," the statement reads.

The IGE consisted of eight, non-governmental experts from Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and the United States. Georgian officials have not identified the experts or their qualifications.

A new group of experts from Britain, Estonia, France and Poland have also arrived, Georgian officials announced, to conduct another investigation.

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