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Road at Gombori mountain pass in Georgia (icon image)
Photo: Vano Shlamov / AFP
A Georgian taxi driver does not have to fear any legal consequences after an argument with two Russian-speaking passengers.
As local media consistently reported, Amiran Bokuchava was acquitted of the charge of kidnapping two passengers.
The dispute is apparently also related to the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
Bokuchava had picked up the two passengers in the April incident at the airport in the capital, Tbilisi.
There, the two Russian-speaking passengers from Lithuania and Russia apparently demanded that Bokuchava speak Russian and turn off the Ukrainian music on the car radio.
Different accounts of the course of the dispute
Apparently the argument came to a head.
Finally, according to the OC Media portal, Bokuchava's lawyer, Irakli Chomakhashvili, says his client abandoned the passengers at the Gombori mountain pass, about 60 kilometers north-west of the airport.
According to the passengers, the dispute was different.
According to the portal, they stated that driver Bokuchava had asked for a multiple of the agreed price.
When the passengers threatened to call the police, the driver locked the doors and drove towards the Azerbaijani border.
There he asked for an even higher sum of money for the release of the two.
On the way there they were freed, the driver threw their belongings out the window and fled.
According to OC Media, Bokuchava was arrested as a result of the allegations and was in a cell for two days.
For the jury, however, the case was clear.
They did not believe the plaintiffs' version and unanimously acquitted Bokuchava of the kidnapping charge.
Meanwhile, his lawyer is celebrating the decision and putting the verdict in a larger context: "Today we defeated Russian imperialism," the lawyer wrote on Facebook.
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