TBILISI. March 25 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgian Interior Minister Koba Narchemashvili has appointed Levan Maisuradze chief of the Tbilisi police department, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry told Interfax-Military News Agency on Monday.
Maisuradze has worked in the police for a long time. He headed the Gori district police department, then was appointed chief of the Didube-Chugureti district police department in Tbilisi and after that became head of the national bureau of Interpol.
Former chief of the Tbilisi police department Kakha Bakuradze retired citing poor financing and weak material and technical support of the city police as the main reason.
Meanwhile, the Georgian mass media published a series of materials in late 2001 accusing Bakuradze and Levan Kenchadze, former head of the antiterrorist center of the Georgian State Security Ministry, of involvement in the kidnapping of Spanish businessmen Jose Luis Trmino and Franciso Rodrigues in November 2000. The two businessmen released from captivity in December 2001 also said there was a connection between their captors and high-ranking officials from law-enforcement agencies. The leadership of the Interior and State Security Ministers categorically denied their involvement.