TSKHINVALI. Oct 6 (Interfax) - At a meeting between representatives from South Ossetia, Russia and Georgia held under the aegis of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) the parties examined a report by Council of Europe Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg about an independent criminal inquiry into the abductions of South Ossetians Khachirov, Khugayev and Pliyev.
"We submitted the additional evidence of the location of not only these three South Ossetians, but also Kabisov, who was also abducted on August 8, 2008, and who was held for a long time at a prison in Khashuri (Georgia)," South Ossetia's deputy presidential envoy for post-conflict regulation, Merab Chigoyev, told Interfax on Tuesday.
"There is eyewitness evidence from our citizens who were held at Georgian detention facilities together with him. Subsequently they were swapped for Georgian servicemen," Chigoyev said.
All South Ossetians who went missing after August 2008 (their current number is seven) were civilians, he also said.
"If these people died, effectively it means that Georgian military or law enforcement agencies killed totally innocent people," Chigoyev said.
On Tuesday, the Georgian village of Ergneti bordering with South Ossetia hosted the third round of the tri-partite meeting between South Ossetian, Russian and Georgian officials under the ICRC aegis. The meeting focused on the mechanisms of searching for missing persons.