Posted on 07/05/2006 4:50:38 PM PDT by joan
Released : Sunday, July 02, 2006 1:18 PM
TBILISI, Georgia-Italian police arrested a Georgian man working for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for allegedly trying to smuggle 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of heroin in Italy, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday.
The ministry did not say in its statement exactly when Zurab Lomashvili was arrested, but Italian newspaper L'Espresso said Lomashvili was driving in the seaside city of Pescara on June 24 when financial police, suspicious of his Macedonian number plate, ordered him to stop and searched the car.
Authorities then took the car to a police mechanic who pulled it apart, finding 38 bags of heroin worth about €2 million (US$2.5 million), L'Espresso reported.
Lomashvili worked for more than a decade in the Foreign Ministry before being appointed to the OSCE office in Skopje, Macedonia, the ministry said.
The Georgian Embassy in Rome said it had no information on the incident and it was not immediately clear whether he had diplomatic status.
Italian police could not be reached for comment.
2 July 2006 | 19:14 | FOCUS News Agency
Rome. Italian authorities accused Georgian citizen Zurab Lomashvili, an employee in the Macedonian office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), of trafficking in a large amount of heroin in the country, Interfax reported citing Georgia’s Foreign Ministry.
The OSCE mission in Macedonia announced about the incident. Zurab Lomashvili was arrested and charged with trafficking in 20 kg of heroin from Albania to Italy.
ping
Georgia...Rome...Atlanta...Jimmy Carter...breaking...
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