Russia Accuses Azerbaijan, Georgia Of Abetting Transfer Of Funds To North Caucasus Resistance

Three days after the Georgian Foreign Ministry rejected as unfounded Russian allegations that Chechen militants are again using Georgian territory as a base from which to launch acts of terrorism in Chechnya, Russian Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika on April 30 accused both Georgia and Azerbaijan of failing to take effective measures to curtail the flow of funds to the North Caucasus resistance.

In his annual report on law and order in Russia in 2008, Chaika alleged that in most cases the cash is transferred from sponsors abroad by couriers who enter the Russian Federation via Azerbaijan or Georgia, if necessary bribing Russian border guards.

Georgian Foreign Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili immediately responded that his ministry does not know of a single such case, and has received no official communication from the Federal Border Service that couriers have been intercepted.

In Baku, Eldar Sultanov, who heads the press service of the Azerbaijani Prosecutor-General's Office, was quoted by the online daily zerkalo.az on May 1 as saying that the office has received no formal notification of any such cases from its Russian counterpart. For that reason, he declined to comment on Chaika's statement.