By empty (8/9/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)

The People's Council adopted a resolution on 9 August to amnesty virtually the entire prison population with the exception of murderers and recidivists on 1 December. Over 16,000 people will benefit from the amnesty; a similar act of clemency last year extended to 9,000 prison inmates. (turkmenistan.

By empty (8/9/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Boris Malakhov said on 8 August that the Georgian authorities "are fully to blame" for the "brutal" murder in Tbilisi of Russian Colonel Igor Zaitsev. Zaitsev was killed by repeated blows to the head with a blunt instrument. The presumed murderer, who has denied killing Zaitsev, is David Zazashvili, an ethnic Georgian citizen of Russia who was one of Zaitsev's colleagues.

By empty (8/9/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Georgia will not create any obstacles to the extradition to Russia of 13 Chechen fighters, but the appropriate international procedures must be complied with, Georgian Foreign Ministry spokesman Kakha Sikharulidze told journalists in Tbilisi on 8 August. The 13 men were detained on 3-4 August after illegally entering Georgia from Russia, and have been remanded in custody. In a move that Georgian Prosecutor-General Nugzar Gabrichidze insisted was "not a political decision," Georgia refused on 6 August to hand them over to Russian Prosecutor-General Vladimir Ustinov on the grounds that Moscow had not furnished documentary evidence that they had committed any crimes in Russia.