Tbilisi City Court ordered on March 1 to hold a former warlord, Emzar Kvitsiani, who was arrested in Tbilisi airport on February 28 upon arrival from Moscow, in pretrial detention.

Kvitsiani led a paramilitary group and was in charge of upper Kodori gorge in breakaway Abkhazia before being ousted from there by government forces in 2006 after he declared defiance to the authorities in Tbilisi.

Pretrial detention for Kvitsiani, who had been wanted by Georgia, was ordered by the court in his absentia in 2006 and 2007 and those decisions were upheld by the Tbilisi City Court on March 1.

Kvitsiani’s defense lawyer argued there was no need for holding his client in pretrial detention as he himself arrived in the country. But the prosecution argued that Kvitsiani “arrived not on his own free will”, but had to return because he was “deported”.