TBILISI. April 17 (Interfax) - Georgian TV3 company reporter Bella Zakaidze, cameraman Vakhtang Lekishvili and technical assistant Mikhail Mikhoyev have been freed from a Tskhinvali detention facility after being detained in the Georgian-Ossetian conflict zone on Tuesday, TV3 reports.
At the separation line in Ergneti they were met by the EU observer mission, Georgian law enforcers, colleagues and relatives.
They were taken to Gori where the Georgian police will interrogate them in relation to the crossing of the separation line.
Zakaidze and other crewmembers said that they had notified Georgian law enforcers about their arrival in the village of Adzvi where they intended to film a local church.
"We were fulfilling an order from the producer and planned to film a report in Adzvi. Previously it was said that villagers could not visit the church or attend services. When our film crew arrived at the village, we headed for the Georgian checkpoint where we were told that we could ask local residents about the matter that interested us. We talked to local people. They were really concerned about the problem. Then our crew headed for the church but as there was a warning note there we could not come up closer and film it. So we decided to film at least this banner and came up by some 100 meters to it," Zakaidze said.
After that the film crew was detained, she said.
Meanwhile, the Georgian Foreign Ministry in a statement on the detention of the journalists noted that Tbilisi notified the cochairmen of the Geneva talks, the EU observer mission in Georgia and other international organizations about the incident and called for helping them with the release of the journalists.
The issue was raised at a meeting of special envoy of the Georgian prime minister for Russian-Georgian relations Zurab Abashidze with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin in Prague on Wednesday.
A commentary posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website on Wednesday says that "on Tuesday Russian border guards who in line with an interstate agreement guard the borders of the Republic of Ossetia with Georgia detained three Georgian TV reporters in South Ossetian territory."