21/7 Tass 440a
TBILISI, July 21 (Itar-Tass) —— The lawyers of three photo reporters, who were arrested in Georgia, told reporters on Thursday, that their clients agreed to cooperate with the prosecutor’s office. The lawyers said that Irakly Gedenidze (a photo reporter of the Georgian presidential press service), Zurab Kurtsikidze (a photo reporter of the European Pressphoto Agency) and Gia Abdaladze (a photo reporter of the Georgian Foreign Ministry) filed applications that they are ready to conclude the agreements for cooperation with the prosecutor’ s office.
Three photo reporters were detained on July 7. They were charged “with leaking the information to an organization, which is acting under the cover of the security service of another country.” “Gedenidze and Abdaladze were taking pictures of the documents, which contained the classified information, and passed it to Kurtsikidze, who leaked this information to Moscow,” the detectives claimed.
The arrested photo reporters allegedly began to give the confessions right after the arrest, Georgian media reported.
The trial in the criminal case will begin on September 1.
Several local media and human rights organizations demand to release the arrested photo reporters or to declassify their criminal case. They believe that the photo reporters are innocent and had to give the confessions in order to make the Georgian authorities release them.