TBILISI, July 27 (RIA Novosti) - Georgia's Interior Ministry has completed a special operation in the remote Kodori Gorge, the presidential chief of staff said Thursday.
Georgian authorities have a reward $55,000 for the information about the whereabouts of militia leader Emzar Kvitsiani, who used to be a Georgian presidential envoy in Abkhazia, that leads to his capture.
Georgia started what it termed an anticrime operation in the region after Kvitsiani said he did not recognize Tbilisi's rule on Sunday. He said Georgian troops were moving to the area to disarm former members of his Hunter border guard battalion, which was formally disbanded in 2005, though most members refused to lay down their arms.
Giorgi Arveladze said the operation had been successful but Kvitsiani and his supporters had managed to escape and the Interior Ministry would set financial awards for any information that also leads to the arrest of his supporters.
"The Georgian Interior Ministry will give a substantial financial reward to anyone who provides the police with valuable information on the whereabouts of Kvitsiani and his supporters," Arveladze said.
He said a woman had been killed in a shootout between the police and the "bandits" after Kvitsiani entered a village in the gorge.
"Let the death of this woman be on his [Kvitsiani's] conscience...," the chief of staff said, placing the blame for the fatality squarely on the former envoy. "When Interior Ministry helicopters appeared over the village, Kvitsiani opened fire on them and the police returned fire."
Arveladze added that the operation had been stopped to avoid further civilian casualties and vowed that Kvitsiani would be caught.
"The search for and arrest of Kvitsiani will probably take a few days, but he will be certainly found and arrested," Arveladze said.
Earlier in the day about 40 relatives of Kvitsiani gathered for the protest in front of the Georgian parliament, demanding that the authorities stop the operation against their relative. They threatened to give up their Georgian citizenship and leave the country if this did not happen.
Arveladze also said officers involved in the operation had confiscated all the weapons they found.
