MOSCOW. Aug 8 (Interfax) - Tbilisi continues to evade cooperating with Russian law enforcers in investigating the developments in South Ossetia in August 2008, spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin has told Interfax.
"Despite numerous requests for legal assistance, the Main Prosecutor's Office of the Georgian Justice Ministry has refused to cooperate with Russian law enforcement bodies in this criminal case on far-fetched grounds," he said.
The main investigative department of the Investigative Committee continues to probe massive murders of Russian citizens and peacekeepers in the territory of South Ossetia and the application of prohibited methods and means of warfare, Markin said.
Georgia's attack on South Ossetia resulted "in the murder of peaceful residents, damage to the health of a significant number of civilians, the complete destruction of 655 houses and partial damage of 2,139 buildings and premises," he said.
In addition, utilities and life-support facilities, hospitals, children's and educational institutions were fully or partly destroyed, forcing over 16,000 residents of South Ossetia, most of whom are Russian citizens, to leave their homes, Markin said.
On August 8 and 9 of 2008, the Georgian Armed Forces opened regular fire at the Russian peacekeeping battalion from various types of small arms and heavy armaments, killing ten Russian peacekeepers.
"Bodily damage of varying gravity was caused to 40 peacekeepers. The infrastructure of the cantonment of the Russian peacekeeping force in the southwestern outskirts of Tskhinvali was fully destroyed," Markin said.
The evidence collected in the process of the investigation, "the scale of the armed attack, the advance thorough military, political and propaganda preparations of the Georgian side give every reason to claim that the attack on South Ossetia, with the purpose of the destruction of the Ossetian population and Russian peacekeepers deployed in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone, had been planned and organized by the top political and military leadership of Georgia," Markin said.