3
Years from Murder of Giorgi Sanaia July
26 - three years from the mysterious murder of Giorgi Sanaia, journalist of the
broadcasting company "Rustavi 2". On
July 26, 2001 Giorgi Sanaia was murdered at his flat. On
July 9, 2003, the Gldani - Nadzaladevi regional court reached the verdict on the
case of Grigol Khurtsilava - accused of murder of a journalist, Giorgi Sanaia
and sentenced him to 13 years imprisonment. Khatuna
Chkhaidze, the widow of the journalist appeal to the Tbilisi District Court; according
to the appeal, Chkhaidze demands the reinvestigation of the case, because the
regional court failed to establish the true motive of the murder, and to find
answers to a number of questions and doubts. | 
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Georgia:
Killing The Hope?Kakha
Khizanishvili,
Intern, CSIS Georgia Forum Assassination
Giorgi
Sanaia was 26 years old and was a very good and popular journalist. He had a wife
and a little son. On July 26, 2001, at about 6.00 A.M. someone entered his apartment
in Tbilisi, Georgia, and shot him in the back of his head from the distance of
few inches. An FBI expert helping the Georgian police to investigate the murder
rated the assassination as "highly professional" and predicted it would
be very difficult to investigate it. Reaction
The
public reaction was tremendous. This many people have not been in the streets
of Tbilisi since the event of April 9, 1989, when Russian special forces assaulted
a peaceful demonstration in Tbilisi's downtown, killing 20, mostly young women.
Sanaia's body was placed in Tbilisi's cathedral church and thousands of people
came to say goodbye. However, goodbye was not the only thing these people said.
In Sanaia's death-directly or indirectly-they blamed the government and the overall
situation in Georgia. See full
article>>
| It
is difficult to explain the impact of Sanaia's death after the fact. At the time,
it seemed immensely shocking. Thousands of protestors took to the streets in the
days following his murder as the Georgian government temporarily ground to a halt.
One group of protestors, comprised of journalists and media figures, stopped traffic
in central Tbilisi when they unfurled a length of black cloth that stretched out
for several blocks. The journalists felt that Sanaia had been murdered because
he was a journalist, and so they saw this crime as a political event, and one
that affected their livelihoods.
Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze
cancelled his trip to Azerbaijan to sign an up until then agreed upon contract
regarding the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. He had been set to sign the documents
on July 27, but felt that the aftermath of the murder made Georgia too unstable
for him to leave the country even briefly. This agreement (which has since been
signed, though only after a considerable delay) is one of the most important things
to happen to Georgia in recent times, as it will bring the country both money
and access to much needed fuel.
See
full article>>
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