Interior minister says bank attacker in Zugdidi took bank’s money, not the state’s
Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri said that Georgian law enforcers have acted in line with international standards during the operation. Photo: Interior Ministry press office.
Tweet 
Share
Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri has confirmed that the attacker on the Bank of Georgia Zugdidi branch yesterday took money from the bank and it was not state money as some media outlets said.
Gomelauri stated that everything is being done to detain the offender.
Our primary goal was to save the hostages. Now [we are doing all we can] to detain the offender and hold him accountable,” Gomelauri said.
The offender allegedly took 500,000 USD after ‘long and complicated’ negotiations with the police yesterday to release 19 hostages.
He left the bank building with a local police official and three hostages and drove to a forest in Chkhorotsku municipality, where he released the hostages and ran earlier today.
The Director General of the opposition-minded TV channel Mtavari Arkhi, former Justice Minister under UNM government Nika Gvaramia says that an unidentified source contacted him yesterday and told him the name of the bank attacker.
Gvaramia says that the source also told him that the attacker had two accomplices inside the bank, both acting soldiers, who played the role of hostages.
At about 16:00, one of the hostages, Irakli Kvaratskhelia, called Mtavari Arkhi and relayed the demands of the attacker, noting there were 19 hostages, including him in the building and that the attacker was heavily armed, with a hand-grenade in his hand.
Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia says that the primary goal was to end yesterday’s attack on the Bank of Georgia Zugdidi branch without victims and that this goal was reached. "Now our main goal is to detain the offender and our law enforcement agencies must use and are using all legal measures to do this,” Gakharia said, adding that the offender’s detention is important to prevent such crimes in the future.
The de facto authorities of Georgia’s Russian-occupied Abkhazia region say the man who held up a Bank of Georgia branch in Zugdidi yesterday will not be allowed into the region. Sputnik cites the de facto authorities as saying that the attacker has not been mentioned near the occupied region so far. The attacker, who demanded half a million USD, released a Georgian regional police officer and the last three hostages in the forest of Kirtskhi village in Chkhotortsu municipality, near the Russian-occupied Abkhazia region.
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili has addressed journalists covering the Bank of Georgia branch hostage crisis in Zugdidi where an armed attacker took 19 people hostage earlier today. “I call on media outlets to take the appeal of the law enforcers into consideration and provide the public with information without hindering the operation of police units”, Zurabishvili said.
The Georgian Interior Ministry released a statement early in the morning, saying that following the special police operation in Samegrelo region, 'all hostages have been released and their lives and health are no longer in danger.' Irakli Kvaratskhelia, one of the hostages of the armed attacker in the Bank of Georgia branch in the western Georgian city of Zugdidi, had reported earlier that the attacker received money and left the building with three hostages.
The Georgian Interior Ministry has announced today that the armed attacker on the Bank of Georgia branch in the western town of Zugdidi has been identified. However, the ministry calls on all media outlets and the public not to reveal the identity or a photograph of the offender, in case they somehow happen to receive information, in order not to interfere in the police investigation.
A lawyer says that Levan Zurabashvili, who attacked MBC microfinance company yesterday and took hostages there, held a lighter, not a weapon, and that the man is a victim of gambling.
Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri stated that 2020 was a year of ‘sudden and difficult challenges.’ “The ministry had to carry out a range of activities at the same time. We were ensuring order and safety, controlling the state border, fighting with criminal, ensuring the defence of human rights, fighting against fires and natural disasters, ensuring a safe electoral environment, ensuring traffic safety, carrying out infrastructural projects and the instructions of the Government's Coordinating Council against coronavirus round the clock,” Gomelauri said.
The rape of a minor will be sentenceable to life imprisonment in Georgia, Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri stated in parliament earlier today.
The Georgian Interior Ministry on Wednesday confirmed the arrest of a man who was wanted since October 2020 for a robbery of a Bank of Georgia branch in the country’s western Samegrelo region, during which he took hostages and reportedly escaped with half a million dollars.
Georgian Justice Minister Rati Bregadze on Wednesday responded to the arrest of a bank robber who had been wanted for two years by saying the detention was a “warning signal to all criminal romantics succumbed to temptation”.
The Zugdidi District Court on Friday found Badri Esebua, the assailant who took hostages in a bank robbery in the western Georgian city in October 2020 and escaped with half a million dollars, guilty and sentenced him to 13 years in prison.