Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said that the Georgian special services helped ex-Secretary of the National Security Council of breakaway South Ossetian Jemal Karkusov escape from prison in Tskhinvali, the capital of the unrecognized republic, on November 19 and helped him find shelter in the Georgian-controlled territory. Karkusov escaped together with his brother Ianek. 

"It was a very difficult operation, which has been planned thoroughly over the past six months. This is a serous victory," Vano Merabishvili told reporters late on November 19.

“We have been contacted by our Ossetian 'colleagues' who requested that we block the roads and arrest these two wanted persons and hand them over [to the South Ossetian side]. I want to say that these people were political prisoners, they were jailed because of their political opinion. But now they are in their homeland,” Vano Merabishvili said.

Jemal Karkusov and his brother were arrested by South Ossetian law enforcers in April, 2005 for the alleged illegal carrying of arms.

Jemal Karkusov was appointed the unrecognized republic’s Secretary of National Security Council in late 2003. Before that he served as the South Ossetian Interior Minister. He resigned from the position of Secretary of National Security Council in June, 2004, reportedly because of disagreements with South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity.

After this jailbreak, Jemal and Ianek Karkusov reportedly hid in the Java district of South Ossetia, north of Tskhinvali, and the Georgian law enforcers were able to covertly take them from Java to the Georgian-controlled territory.

“Jemal and Ianek Karkusov are criminals who must be extradited to the South Ossetian side… The Georgian side has accused the South Ossetian side many times of sheltering criminals, but now it has become clear who harbors criminals,” Mikhail Mindzaev, the breakaway South Ossetian Interior Minister, told the Regnum news agency on November 20.