The Tbilisi City Court has upheld the prosecution’s motion and sent to pretrial detention four persons arrested on charges of assisting the group of terrorism suspects, who fought against the Georgian security forces on November 21-22 in Tbilisi.

The Tbilisi City Court said in its press release yesterday that the four detainees helped “members of a terrorist organization with obtaining housing, and [providing] services, food and household items.” The latter, according to the Court, “carried out a terrorist act” during the November 21-22 operation through “setting off hand grenades and opening intensive fire against the security officers.”

The Court considered that there were “high risks of committing a new crime, obstructing the evidence collection process and hiding of detainees, and therefore, it deemed reasonable to apply the strictest form of punishment - imprisonment.”

The security forces apprehended the four suspects in a double operation in Tbilisi and Pankisi gorge of Akhmeta District on December 26. The fifth suspect - 18-year-old Temirlan Machalikashvili - who was shot in the head and hospitalized during the operation, has not been indicted by the prosecutors.