TBILISI — Separatists in Georgia's Russian-controlled region of South Ossetia on Saturday released a Georgian doctor who was arrested last month for entering the breakaway territory, the state security service in Tbilisi said. The move came unexpectedly after a court last week handed a 21-month jail sentence to Vazha Gaprindashvili, who colleagues said had been trying to reach a patient in South Ossetia, a region controlled by Moscow since a war in 2008. "I did not expect my release today," Gaprindashvili, who is the president of Georgia's association of orthopedist and traumatologists, told reporters in the Georgian town of Gori. "I want to thank everyone who worried about me, but especially my beautiful wife and wonderful children," he added.

Source: International New York Times December 28, 2019 12:45 UTC