Georgian Police Investigating Attack in Armenian Area

18 July 2005 -- Georgian police say they are investigating an attack against a group of students from Tbilisi that occurred in the mostly ethnic Armenian Akhalkalaki district.

Interior Ministry spokesman Guram Donadze said local youths on 16 July beat up a group of university students who were cleaning up an abandoned Georgian Orthodox Church. The students returned to Tbilisi, where one was hospitalized with a head injury.

Donadze said prosecutors opened a criminal case on charges of hooliganism, suggesting they did not necessarily see the incident as racially motivated.

(Georgian Service/AP)