Georgia: Presidential Photographer, Three Others Arrested in Counterintelligence Operation
The latest installment in Georgia’s chase for spies on July 7 saw the arrest of four high-profile photographers, including no less than President Mikheil Saakashvili’s personal photographer.
In a nocturnal detention spree, counterintelligence officials detained five photographers on suspicion of sending visual intelligence to an unnamed "foreign country." Detained are: presidential photographer Irakli Gedenidze and his photographer wife Natia Gedenidze; Georgian Foreign Ministry photographer Giorgi Abdaladze; and Zurab Kurtsikidze, a stringer for the European Press Photo Agency.
Also brought in for questioning was Associated Press photo correspondent Shakh Aivazov, but he was later released.
So far, media efforts to extract any piece of information from clammed-up Georgian officials about the reason for the arrests have been in vain. A Ministry of Internal Affairs statement simply has it that the photographers were sending certain things to a certain country's intelligence service, causing certain damage to national interests. Putting all the bits together, it is not difficult to guess that the said country is Russia.
But without any released evidence from police to support their accusations, the photographers' arrest could prove a serious blow to Georgia’s less-than-stellar media freedom record. The police, though, seem to be in no hurry to explain what exactly happened.
On the other hand, if the accusations are proven true, the “Photogate” could prove a big embarrassment for Georgia’s pride-and-joy security and police system.
Just the day before, Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili told Russia’s Ekho Moskvy radio station that, thanks to all of his ministry's hard work, there is little room left in Georgia for Russian spies to go on their mega-mission to topple Saakashvili.
But, to hear Merabishvili's ministry tell it now, there is apparently some room for spying available inside Saakashvili’s very office, if, in fact, the president’s own photographer is allegedly spying on him.
What's next? With close to no official information to go on, your guess is as good as ours.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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