Bllomberg informs about the interview of Interior Minister with journalists.

Georgia said a photographer detained on suspicion of espionage has links to two Russians expelled for spying five years ago.

Zurab Qurtsikidze from the European Pressphoto Agency was arrested July 7 along with presidential photographer Irakli Gedenidze, Gedenidze's wife Natia, and Foreign Ministry photographer Giorgi Abdaladze. A court in Tbilisi ordered July 9 that Qurtsikidze, Gedenidze and Abdaladze be held for two months while they await trial. Natia Gedenidze was released on bail.
"Qurtsikidze has links to the spy scandal members from 2006," Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili told reporters today in Tbilisi. "He is suspected of having made phone and possibly other contact since 2004 and we have enough evidence."

Police say the photographers passed confidential information about President Mikheil Saakashvili through Qurtsikidze to Russian secret services. Abdaladze said July 11 that they were targeted because they sold pictures of anti- government protests in May at which a demonstrator was killed by riot police.
Qurtsikidze had ties to Anatoly Sinitsin and Sergey Okrokov, who were arrested on suspicion of spying and sent back to Russia in 2006, Merabishvili said. Russia won a five-day war with Georgia two year later.

The photographers' arrests have no connection to May's protests, Merabishvili added.