Azernews.Az

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

Georgian citizens will be sentenced to prison if they join, or train together with illegal military formations abroad.

Thea Tsulukiani, Georgian Minister of Justice, announced the new decision, saying that the new amendment in the Criminal Code will affect the people, who join the illegal formations in foreign countries, including Syria, Iraq and etc.

Tsulukiani recalled her visit to the Pankisi Gorge, a valley mainly inhabited by the Kist sub-ethnos in northeastern Georgia bordering Chechnya Republic of the Russian Federation in 2013, where the local population voiced their concern over the youth's interest in terrorism.

It has recently been reported that a growing number of young men from the Pankisi valley left the region to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The valley was also home to Tarkhan Batirashvili - a military leader of ISIS who was known as Abu Omar al-Shishani and killed in Syria in last May.

"That's why, long before the terrorist attack in France, we sent a new initiative to the parliament jointly with the Interior Ministry. In particular, the new amendment will be included in the Article 312 of the Criminal Code, which states that any kind of participation in illegal formations abroad, including recruitment, training or calling the others to join will be punished by imprisonment,” Tsulukiani said.

A large number of Georgians has reportedly joined the ISIS, an internationally recognized terrorist organization by the US State Department, so far.

Former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has accused the Georgian government of not doing enough to prevent hundreds of Georgian nationals from fighting alongside the Islamic State militants.

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