Extradition of especially dangerous criminal Shota Chichiashvili to Georgia

The Georgian Interior Ministry is preparing documents for extradition to Tbilisi of an especially dangerous criminal Shota Chichiashvili recently detained in Moscow.

At a press conference Georgian Interior Minister Koba Narchemashvili expressed "personal gratitude to his Russian counterpart Boris Gryzlov for assistance in detaining the criminal".

According to the Minister, the Georgian police have been conducting operative work to establish the location of Shota Chichiashvili for over a year.

Chichiashvili is suspected of organising a number of notorious kidnappings in Georgia. For example, he is suspected of kidnapping representatives of the International Red Cross Committee in the Pankisi Gorge, Spanish businessmen Francisco Rodrigues and Antonio Tremino, British businessman Peter Show as well as other notorious crimes.

Chichiashvili had been hiding in the Chechen capital of Grozny, in the house of his Kistian mother's relatives /Kistians - Chechens living in Georgia/. In the recent time he had been living in Moscow using a forged passport.