ucha nanuashvili

Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–There are twelve Georgian prisoners in South Ossetia, a breakaway Georgian region, according to the public defender Ucha Nanuashvili.

He told Pirveli Radio Wednesday that his office has received positive signal from non-government organizations in the breakaway region about exchanging prisoners.

“They welcome this process,” he said, adding that his office has started work to obtain a complete list of persons who are currently in prison in Tskhinvali, the capital of and only city in the disputed region.

“Ossetian NGOs are helping us in this process. In the next few days, they will provide us with a renewed list of prisoners,” Nanuashvili said.

He thinks that this process can contribute to restoring trust between people living in Tskhinvali and the rest of Georgia.

The ombudsman also said that there might also begin a process to exchange deceased persons, along with investigations into people who are missing.

Nanuashvili said representatives of the breakaway regime requested to move the bodies of a few ethnic Ossetians to Tskhinvali.