One more arrested for allegedly helping IS-linked terrorist Chataev enter Georgia

The State Security Service of Georgia has arrested a man for allegedly helping Akhmed Chataev, Islamic State-linked terrorist, entering Georgia.

The agency said in a statement this evening that a special operation was held today, on January 9 in Akhmeta, Georgia to detain Georgian citizen Zurab Idoidze.

In parallel to the operation, a search was held in his home in the village of Omalo in the Pankisi Gorge, eastern Georgia.

"At this stage of the investigation, it has been established that Zurab Idoidze and Zurab Gornakashvili travelled to the Turkish town of Khopa to help Akhmed Chataev and his accomplices”, the agency said.

It added that Idoidze and Gornakashvili drove Chataev and his accomplices from their temporary residential area in Khopa to the Turkey-Georgia border near the Kirnati-Maradidi ‘green border’ (a section of border between crossing points).

Idoidze is arrested for charges related to financing terrorism, provision of other material support and resources to terrorist activities. If proven guilty, the charges will send him to jail from 17 to 20 years or for life.

Meanwhile the other man mentioned in the press release, Zurab Gornakashvili, was arrested in an earlier special operation in Pankisi on December 26.

Akhmed Chataev, together with three other suspected terrorists, was killed in the Tbilisi counter-terrorist operation on November 22.