Georgia policeman shot and killed

[frigidmagi]

BBC

Georgia has accused Moscow of violating a truce deal after a Georgian policeman was shot dead at a checkpoint close to the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Tbilisi said shots that hit the officer came from the direction of a Russian-manned buffer zone.

Russia said its men did not fire and said a joint search was conducted with Georgian police at the scene near Gori.

On Monday Moscow agreed to pull its men out of buffer zones around South Ossetia and Abkhazia within a month.

The BBC's Moscow correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes says the shooting looks likely to further raise tensions between Georgia and Russia.

Russian forces continue to occupy its neighbour's territory weeks after August's five-day war.

'No provocations'

Georgian authorities said the policeman was shot in the head while manning a check post about one kilometre (0.5 miles) from the Russian position at Karaleti, on the main road leading to the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Georgians did not return fire and the policeman died later in hospital, officials in Tbilisi said.

There was speculation in the Georgian media that the gunfire might have come from Russia's South Ossetian allies.

The Georgian foreign ministry said in a statement: "This incident provides further evidence that the Russian side continues to violate the six-point ceasefire document [brokered by the EU to end August's violence]."

But Russia's foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko denied the accusations, countering: "We are not resorting to any provocations and we have not been opening fire at anyone."

Russian forces were reportedly showing signs of getting ready to leave Georgian territory on Wednesday, two days after agreeing to withdraw forces within a month.

The ceasefire deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy is conditional on the deployment of at least 200 European Union peacekeepers.

But Russia insists it will keep nearly 8,000 troops based inside the two separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Following the war Moscow defied the rest of the world by recognising the two provinces as independent states. It has vowed to protect them from Georgian attack.

Fighting between Russia and Georgia began on 7 August after the Georgian military tried to retake South Ossetia by force, triggering a massive counter-attack by Russia.