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| An unidentified man, who walked out from the Georgian embassy, attacks a photographer in Kiev yesterday |
The three news photographers have been charged with collecting confidential material on Georgia’s pro-Western leadership that was allegedly sent to Russian military intelligence.
Foreign Ministry photographer Giorgi Abdaladze said in video testimony that he had passed information about high-level meetings to the alleged kingpin of the spy ring, Zurab Kurtsikidze, a photographer for the European Pressphoto Agency.
“The most recent thing (Kurtsikidze) asked me to do was to take not only photographs, but also transcripts of the conversations,” he said in the testimony released to journalists as a CD-ROM by the prosecutor’s office.
The 16 minutes of footage showed Abdaladze seated at a table with his lawyer speaking to Georgian prosecutors.
Abdaladze said he had gathered data on official meetings through his access to the foreign ministry’s computers.
The other suspect, President Mikheil Saakashvili’s personal photographer Irakli Gedenidze, has also been shown in video testimony released by the authorities saying that he provided pictures and data to Kurtsikidze.
The photographers have been put under two months’ pre-trial detention and could face up to 12 years in jail if convicted.
In a sign of the widespread concerns raised by the case, Georgian journalists on Monday held the latest in a series of protests in support of the detained photographers outside the prison where they are being held.
A group of topless demonstrators and news photographers taking their pictures were kicked and punched by a man leaving the Georgian embassy yesterday, as a media scandal in the Caucasian republic widened.
Three members of the Ukrainian political action group Femen were standing on the steps of the Georgian embassy in Kiev and shouting slogans when a man left the building and then slapped the topless female demonstrators.
Femen members attempt to draw attention to their cause by wearing scanty clothes while carrying out their demos. Yesterday they were protesting against the Thursday arrests of three photographers in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on spying charges.
The man next attacked several of approximately one dozen news photographers at the scene, in some cases punching and kicking the newsmen. He did not identify himself.
Ukrainian police on the scene requested the man stop without otherwise intervening. Georgian Foreign Ministry comment on the incident was not immediately available.
The assault took place on a sidewalk in a residential district of the Ukrainian capital.
Meanwhile in Georgia, a group of independent newspapers and magazines in Georgia went to press without pictures, printing the word “Protest” in block letters in place of photographs, Interfax reported.
A statement from the Press Association of Georgia, the media watch group organising the protest, accused the administration of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili of repressing independent journalists on trumped-up espionage charges.
Georgian national security agency agents on Thursday arrested Saakashvili’s personal photographer, a staff photographer for Georgia’s Foreign Ministry, and a staff photographer for the Frankfurt-based European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) on charges of spying for Russia. The German Press Agency DPA is a major shareholder in EPA.
Lawyers for two of the photographers have denied allegations of wrongdoing, saying their clients were professional media workers covering Saakashvili.