OSCE Chair Special Representative presents independent expert’s report on three persons missing since shortly after the 2008 conflict in Georgia

VIENNA, 2 March 2016 – During his visits to Tbilisi and Tskhinvali in advance of the 35^th round of the Geneva International Discussions, the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the South Caucasus, Ambassador Guenther Baechler, handed over a report relating to a case of three persons who disappeared shortly after the 2008 conflict in Georgia.

The report is the result of the work of independent expert, Dušan Ignjatović, who was employed by the OSCE in October 2015 to provide support to the Georgian investigative team working on the case of Alan Khachirov, Alan Khugaev and Soltan Pliev - three young Ossetians who went missing on 13 October 2008. Their fate remains to date uncertain.

The report recommends a revision of the investigative strategy as well as practical steps to enhance the use of available evidence. It also stresses the need for improved communication between the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia and the victims’ relatives.

The Georgian authorities launched a formal investigation into this case in June 2009. A mission was also conducted in 2010 under the aegis of the Council of Europe’s then Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, which yielded important expert recommendations on how to deal with the case.

Under the leadership of successive OSCE Chairmanships’ Special Representatives for the South Caucasus, the OSCE has tirelessly promoted progress on the issue at the Geneva International Discussions and the Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism, and has established excellent co-operation with the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia. In May 2015, the then OSCE Special Representative Ambassador Angelo Gnaedinger and the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia agreed on the deployment of Ignjatović, a highly-qualified expert from Serbia, for a two-month period. Mr Ignjatović started his assignment in late October 2015. His main tasks were to provide assistance to the investigative team with a view to following up on the Hammarberg recommendations, and to facilitate communication between the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia and the victims’ relatives.

The OSCE Special Representative continues to actively promote progress on cases of missing persons from the 2008 and earlier conflicts, and to encourage the sides to find a way to co-operate on this case and on other cases of missing persons. The presence of an independent expert has proven to be a catalyst in increasing progress on the case Khachirov, Khugaev and Pliev. Under the 2016 Chairmanship, the OSCE stands ready to provide further support for the investigations, and communication between the investigators and the families of the victims.