1. Tengiz Kitovani was a Georgian politician and military commander with high-profile involvement in the Georgian Civil War early in the 1990s when he commanded the National Guard of Georgia.
15 Facts About Tengiz Kitovani
1. 2.
Tengiz Kitovani entered national politics early in 1990 when the independence movement reached its climax in then-Soviet Georgia.
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Tengiz Kitovani subsequently claimed that Gamsakhurdia was intending to disband the National Guard, and had been ordered to do so by the leaders of the 1991 Soviet coup d'etat attempt, but did not produce the documents he claimed to possess confirming this.
4.
Tengiz Kitovani refused to accept his dismissal and left Tbilisi with most of his troops to entrench himself in the Rkoni Gorge.
5.
Shevardnadze failed to have Tengiz Kitovani's force withdrawn from Abkhazia and the country became involved in a thirteen-month-long war which would end in Georgia's loss of control over most of Abkhazia.
6.
Later, Shevardnadze would accuse Tengiz Kitovani of provoking an armed conflict in Abkhazia, claiming that Tengiz Kitovani disavowed his order and advance with his military to Sukhumi.
7.
Tengiz Kitovani however blamed Shevardnadze for preventing him from following up an offensive on Sukhumi with an attack on the Abkhaz stronghold in Gudauta, home to a Russian military base which supplied the secessionist forces with instructors and munitions.
8.
Tengiz Kitovani stood as a candidate in Georgia's parliamentary elections of 11 October 1992 and was elected in the single-mandate constituency of Bolnisi.
9.
On 13 January 1995, Kitovani, with the support of Tengiz Sigua, led a force of some 700 lightly armed supporters in a march against Abkhazia.
10.
Tengiz Kitovani was tried for having organized an unlawful armed force and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in October 1996.
11.
Tengiz Kitovani served four years of his eight-year term and was pardoned by Shevardnadze on medical grounds on 22 May 1999.
12.
Later that year, Tengiz Kitovani accused Shevardnadze of being behind the 2002 assassination of Kakhi Asatiani, a businessman and former football star.
13.
Tengiz Kitovani upheld Russia's claims that some 700 Chechen fighters had spent that winter in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge.
14.
Georgian Prosecutor-General Nugzar Gabrichidze claimed that Tengiz Kitovani had been in close contact with National Guard veterans who staged a failed mutiny on 23 March 2003.
15.
Tengiz Kitovani returned to Tbilisi, in December 2012, after the change of government in the aftermath of the October 2012 parliamentary election.