TBILISI. Oct 8 (Interfax-AVN) - The Georgian police have set up additional checkpoints and carries out special operations aimed at detaining criminals in the volatile Pankisi gorge, head of the Kakhetia territory department of the Georgian Interior Ministry Zurab Tushuri told Interfax-Military News Agency on Monday.
"The police try to establish full control over the Pankisi gorge," stressed Tushuri. According to him, "there is certain progress, in particular, criminal leader Vepkhia Margoshvili was detained."
"Law-enforces controlling villages in the Pankisi gorge are supported by the locals and refugees form Chechnya," police chief of the Akhmeta district Gochi Nazgaidze said. First Deputy Interior Minister Zurab Chkhaidze has arrived in the gorge to supervise the operation.