Police officers fired over smuggling allegations
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili today fired several senior police officers whom he accused of involvement in smuggling.
Saakashvili, in a live address on national television, said he had fired Alexander Sukhitashvili, the head of police in Shida Kartli province in central Georgia, and all senior officers in the region.
Saakashvili said he would personally oversee the criminal probe into their alleged misdeeds.
Shida Kartli neighbours Georgia’s breakaway province of South Ossetia, which has run its own affairs since driving out Georgian government forces in 1992 and forged close ties with Russia.
Georgian officials have said that South Ossetia became a major smuggling route and set up additional police checkpoints last year intended to stem smuggling.
Fighting between Georgian and South Ossetian forces broke out in August, with each side blaming the other.
Today Saakashvili said that police in Shida Kartli had worked with smugglers.
“Top police officials in Shida Kartli were involved in smuggling together with Ossetian separatists,” he said.
The dismissal of police officials followed the detention of a shipment of manganese ore being smuggled from Georgia toward South Ossetia under police escort, according to Georgia’s Interior Ministry.
Saakashvili has pledged to bring South Ossetia, and another separatist region, Abkhazia, back into the fold.
