Three Pankissi Gorge residents convicted in Georgia for abetting ISIL terrorists
A court in Tbilisi on Monday sentenced Pankissi Gorge resident Ayuf Borchashvili to 14 years of imprisonment for abetting Islamic State, a terrorist organization banned in Russia.
Other defendants in the case, Giorgi Khutunishvili and David Pirisebiya, also from Pankissi Gorge, have been sentenced to eleven and ten years, respectively. All three were arrested in June last year.
Yet another person accused in the case, David Kuprava, was released from custody after reaching a procedural agreement with investigators. It was he who confirmed that the detained men had arranged for Muslim Kushtanashvili, 17, and Razman Bagakashvili, 18, to be sent across Pankissi Gorge to Syria to fight alongside Islamic State.
At the final court sitting on Monday, Borchasvhili denied any guilt. He said the young men who travelled to Syria from Pankissi Gorge "joined the Islamic State army consciously and voluntarily."
