On 23 August, a court in Sukhumi (Sukhum) remanded two Georgian citizens to two months of pre-trial detention on charges of acquiring and possessing arms. Critics have suggested that the case is aimed at bolstering the Security Service’s public image. 

The two brothers, 60-year-old Remiko and 57-year-old Murtaz Chitanava, both have Abkhazian residence permits, and were detained on 17 August in the village of Otobaia Vtoraya (Bgoura) in the Gali district.

Abkhazia’s State Security Service announced that the brothers had not only assisted other Georgian citizens in entering Abkhazia, but also had grenades, TNT, plastic explosives, cartridges, and dollars seized from their home.

On Friday, the Chitanavas were charged with acquiring and keeping weapons and explosives as part of a group.

Independent Telegram channels reported that during the hearing, the court heard that the Chitanava brothers were violently detained in the early hours of 17 August, with armed security forces shooting and killing their dog. 

‘Despite the lack of resistance from the detainees, the security forces used force — they smashed their faces and broke a hand when they were dragging them out of the house’, the Aiashara channel wrote.

It added that the court dismissed evidence that the detainees had been beaten, and ignored the lack of documentation in the case file that would have allowed for the search to be carried out in the first place. 

A video of Remiko and Murtaz Chitanava’s detention was published by the State Security Service on 20 August. The video shows at least one of the detainees with scratches and blood on his face as their house is searched.

An attempted diversion

A number of independent journalists and media outlets have suggested that the Chitanava brothers’ case was aimed at diverting public attention from recent criticism of the State Security Service. 

Journalist Izida Chania suggested that the widely publicised detention was a stunt aimed at improving the State Security Service’s public image. 

‘It is especially offensive that our State Security Service is taking part in this clown show when their attention should be focused on corruption, which is visible to the naked eye, on smuggling, anti-national projects, on scams that drive our country into dependence, on officials’ unconstitutional actions, and fraudulent schemes that threaten our country’s territorial integrity’, said Chania. 

Chania also noted that the brothers’ property lies partly in Abkhazia and partly in Georgia, claiming that the State Security Service ‘stole’ a Georgian citizen, and that it was lucky Georgia did not turn the incident into an ‘international scandal’.

Chania had earlier noted that such channels for ‘illegal migration’ had long existed, adding that it was ‘surprising that the SGB “discovered” them only now’. 

Abkhazia’s State Security Service has recently faced criticism after reports by journalist Nizfa Arshba that State Security Service officials who had spoken out against the law on apartments were being demoted or dismissed.

[Read more: Abkhazian Parliament withdraws apartments bill following public anger]

In response, the State Security Service claimed that Arshba’s reports were motivated by her being denied an entry pass into Georgia at the Ingur (Enguri) checkpoint, accusations Arshba denied.

On 20 August, reports emerged that all Security Service employees who had been dismissed or transferred to other departments had been reinstated in their previous positions.

The State Security Service also announced that same day that they had successfully intercepted a number of illegal migration channels and schemes, all in the Gal (Gali) region, highlighting the case of the Chitanava brothers. 

For ease of reading, we choose not to use qualifiers such as ‘de facto’, ‘unrecognised’, or ‘partially recognised’ when discussing institutions or political positions within Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia. This does not imply a position on their status.

Read in Russian on SOVA.News.