MIA of South Ossetia: no political context in detention of "People's Party" activists

The MIA of the Republic of South Ossetia (RSO) asserts that detention of the members of "People's Party" on April 10 in the Party's office had nothing to do with their political activity. The letter of the MIA's press service that arrived to the "Caucasian Knot" office says that the neighbours living close to the Party's office asked law enforcers to make a check.

"On April 10, 2009, the telephone hotline of the MIA of the RSO received a message from residents of Dzhigkaeva Street of Tskhinvali that recently in the house No. 14, where nobody lives for a long time, accumulation of motor vehicles and suspicious people was observed," runs the letter received by the edition. "On that very day, at about 4:30 p.m. an inquiry and operative group of the MIA went to the above address.

The press service has explained that the agents who arrived to the suspicious house found four persons without documents inside, "therefore, they were brought into the premise of the criminal militia of RSO's MIA for identification."

"After clarification of all circumstances, the above persons proved to be residents of Tskhinvali Makiev, R. E., Slanov, A. K., Tskhovrebov, M. Kh., and Margieva, F. Yu. They were immediately released," the press service has explained. "No physical or psychological pressure was applied to them by law enforcers."

The MIA explained that such spot-checks are a recent regularity in South Ossetia. "From early April, the Republic's MIA works in the enhanced regime," Zemfira Kulbegova, MIA's press secretary, said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "The reason is in opposition's actions in Georgia. Provocations could be organized in the territory of South Ossetia to distract attention from the problems in the neighbouring state."

However, representatives of the "People's Party" do not agree with the MIA's version of the incident. "Our headquarters is in a private house; two weeks ago we were friendly offered to use this house in our pre-election work," Roland Kelekhsaev, Chairman of the "People's Party", said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"On that day, April 10, the house hosted a meeting of the alternative pseudo 'People's Party'," the politician has explained. "After the incident, operative agents came up to party members and, having apologized, said that their bosses had assured that armed terrorists hid in the house."

According to the persons who were at that time in the house - a university teacher Fatima Margieva, head of staff of one of the battalions of the Ministry of Defence of South Ossetia Mair Tskhovrebov, a platoon commander of the Ministry of Defence Soslan Makiev and Akhsar Slanov - people in masks with sub-machine guns came and laid all of us on the floor. Then, without presenting any documents took men away in an unknown direction.

Soon, they were released without any explanations. The detainees said that one of the employees of the criminal militia babbled out that they had been detained for political reasons.

We remind you that on the eve of parliamentary elections to be held on May 31 messages arrived from South Ossetia about a split of the "People's Party" into two sections. Thus, two "People's Parties" appeared, each of them held their congresses (on April 8 and 10), where party members nominated their candidates for the parliament. On April 10, the congress of the "People's Party" that was chaired by Valery Bibilov, a member of the Party "Unity", elected Kazimir Pliev to be the head of the Party.

Roland Kelekhsaev, Chairman of the "People's Party" (from April 8), called the election of Chairman Pliev to be illegal and refuted the rumours about party split. Earlier, Mr Kelekhsaev sent an official appeal to President of Russia Dmitri Medvedev, in which he asked to render efficient help in strengthening democratic institutions in South Ossetia in view of the situation before the parliamentary elections.