TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — The personal photographer to the Georgian president was shown on television Saturday confessing to supplying a colleague with secret information that was then sent to a Russian secret service.
Irakli Gedenidze confessed to supplying another photographer, Zurab Kurtsikidze with the secret information for unspecified remuneration. His wife Natia said she knew her husband was friends with Kurtsikidze and sent him the details of his bank account, but she did not confess to taking part in their dealings.
Irakli Gedenidze, Kurtsikidze and another photographer were charged with espionage early Saturday. Natia Gedenidze was released without charge.
Georgian police spokesman Georgy Bukhrashvili told reporters Saturday that investigators believe Kurtsikidze, a photographer for European Pressphoto Agency, had "connections" with Russia’s military intelligence unit, GRU, and hired the other two photographers to provide secret information on the president’s schedule, his motorcade’s route and his administration building.
Bukhrashvili said the two men had taken pictures of the secret documents and then sent them to Kurtsikidze to dispatch to Moscow. The photographs with the classified information were found in the two men’s apartments, the police spokesman said.
Gedenidze and his wife were shown on national television on Saturday,
The presidential photographer said in the televised statement that he had to agree to Kurtsikidze’s final request to find information on Georgian secret services after the EPA photographer had started blackmailing him, threatening to make public their earlier dealings.
"I got scared and kept on working with him," the presidential photographer said of Kurtsikidze.
Neither Irakli Gedenidze nor his wife mentioned in their testimony the other photographer charged in the case, Georgy Abdaladze.
Abdaladze, who works with the Georgian Foreign Ministry and has freelanced for The Associated Press, denies the espionage charge. The Georgian Interior Ministry, however, played a recording of what they say is a phone conversation between Abdaladze and the EPA photographer, where Kurtsikidze asks him to provide the details of his bank account.
President Mikhail Saakashvili said in an interview with the Ekho Moskvy radio station Friday that he learnt about the spy ring half an hour before the arrests.
"This is not paranoia but it’s about the rule of law and equality of everyone," he said of the operation to arrest the journalists. "As for the personal photographer, I got very upset about it and I am still."
