The Abkhaz authorities are willing to release a journalist and another Georgian citizen if it is found that they committed no crime other than illegally crossing the Abkhaz border, Abkhaz leader Sergey Bagapsh said on March 3.

“If the investigation finds that the detainees have committed no crime other than illegally crossing the Abkhaz state border, the issue of their release can be resolved positively,” Abkhaz news agency Apsnipress quoted Bagapsh as saying.

He was speaking at a meeting with a group of Abkhaz journalists who requested that their Georgian colleague and another detainee be released. Tbilisi-based Mze TV eporter Malkhaz Basilaia, as well as Davit Tsotsoria and his mother, Maia Danelia, were arrested in the Gali district on February 26. Danelia was released on March 1. Beselia and Tsotsoria remain in custody pending trial, which according to the Abkhaz general prosecutor’s office, is expected within a month.

The intervention of the Abkhaz reporters followed an appeal for them to do so by several Georgian media organizations. They had called for the release of Basilaia, but had failed to even mention the other detainee.

Manana Gurgelia, the director of the Abkhaz state news agency, Apsnipress, said it was very strange that neither the Georgian authorities nor the Georgian journalists “cared about the fate of the other Georgian citizen – Davit Tsotsoria.”