Gela Mtivlishvili, Kakheti
The situation has complicated after the murder in the village of Karaghaji in Sighnaghi district several days ago. The villagers request to open a police station in the village and to withdraw illegal weapon from the population. The locals got particularly annoyed after 25-year-old Ilgar Karimov was arrested for the murder of three people in Karaghaji village. The locals say it is the third murder in the village for the last two years.
The murder happened on November 4. According to the police department, drunken 25-year-old Ilgar Karimov shot three people in the village: the residents of the village of Kvemo Machkhaani - 23-year-old Murad Shanshiashvili, 26-year-old Ilia Papuashvili and 40-year-old Vazha Natroshvili were killed on the place. Nikoloz Papuashvili was wounded in the legs and is in Tsnori hospital now.
The witness Paata Kharashvili said Ilgar Karimov requested the attendant of the petrol station Guram Bagdasarov to fill in his car tank with fuel but Bagdasarov refused because it was late night. Other people, who were at the petrol station at that moment, supported Bagdasarov and as a result Karimov started shooting from the automatic gun.
The law enforcement officers arrested Ilgar Karimov. According to the MIA, Karimov was hiding in the farm near the village.
“Material evidence – automatic gun AKS with 16 bullets was withdrawn. The prosecution is going on under Article 109 of the Criminal Code of Georgia,” the statement of the MIA. Life imprisonment might be imposed on the accused. Telavi district court sentenced Karimov to two-month pretrial detention.
Ilgar Karimov does not plead guilty. Karimov said he has not shot people in Karaghaji.
The villagers blame the law enforcement officers in inattention. They said, because of frequent incidents in the village, they have petitioned to the police department to search families and to withdraw weapon from them but in vain. After the murder, the aggression against ethnic Azerbaijan people has particularly increased.
“Azeri people sometimes argue about plots or cattle. They have a lot of cattle which they leave without attention and cows damage our plots. When we warn them to pay attention to their cattle, they take out their guns and threaten us unless we stop complaining,” said the residents of Karaghaji village. “We could not complain before but this murder really astonished us,” said the locals.
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