INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Georgia in South Ossetia, it said Thursday.Mikhail Mayramovich Mindzaev, Gamlet Guchmazov and David Georgiyevich Sanakoev, who were
officials in the pro-Moscow breakaway republic, allegedly detained civilians to use as "bargaining chips" in negotiations, the ICC
said.Judges at the Hague-based ICC found "there were reasonable grounds to believe that each of these three suspects bears responsibility
affairs minister for South Ossetia, Guchmazov was head of the ministry's preliminary detention facility, and Sanakoev was the region's
"ombudsman" at the time, the court said.The court in 2016 opened an investigation into alleged war crimes during the brief 2008 war
fighting in August 2008 claimed more than 700 lives and displaced tens of thousands of ethnic Georgians.The ICC said there was evidence that
ethnic Georgians were arrested in South Ossetia "and subsequently detained, mistreated and kept in harsh detention conditions in a detention
authorities, and used for an exchange of prisoners and detainees
As a result of the exchange, the detainees were forced to leave South Ossetia."Russian nationals Mindzaev, 66, and Guchmazov, 45, are both
accused of war crimes of unlawful confinement, torture and inhuman treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, hostage-taking, and unlawful
member of the ICC but Georgia is.
