December 10, 2004 - 04:00 AMT
15:58 GMT
The Georgian special services investigate circumstances of incident in Vakhtangisi village (Gardaban region, Kvemo Kartli province) which is populated by Azeris. On Wednesday several hundreds armed residents of that village captured a group of Georgian Ministry of Finance financial police officers who had arrived to check if there was contraband. The officers of that department discovered contraband goods kept in the village to the amount of almost 3 million dollars which was illegally conveyed through the frontiers from Azerbaijan. The hostages could be released only after arrival of the internal forces detachment and SWAT division of the Ministry of National Security. The Head of the Financial Police David Kezerashvili was also among the hostages.