New Look at a C.I.A. Officer’s Death
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Version 0 of 1. STRASBOURG, France — The new government of Georgia is taking a new look at one of the unsolved mysteries left over from the chaotic collapse of the Soviet Union: the shooting death of a C.I.A. officer, Freddie Woodruff, on a dusty road on the outskirts of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, 20 years ago. “The case has not been properly investigated,” said Justice Minister Tea Tsulukiani, referring to the failure of previous governments to present a plausible explanation for the killing, which took place on Aug. 8, 1993, amid fierce jockeying for influence between Moscow and Washington in the newly independent nation. “We have some serious doubts about what really happened,” she added in an interview during a visit to the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe along with Georgia’s prime minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, an enigmatic billionaire who took office after parliamentary elections last October. Michael Pullara, a lawyer based in Houston who has studied the Woodruff murder case closely and lobbied for years for a new investigation, said he was “absolutely delighted” by Georgia’s apparent readiness to re-examine the murky saga. He added that despite the passage of so many years, “a lot of the missing pieces have now been found and it is possible to know the truth.” Georgia attributed Mr. Woodruff’s death to a random shot fired by a drunken Georgian, a former Soviet soldier. The suspect, Anzor Sharmaidze, was swiftly convicted of murder in 1994 and sentenced to 15 years in prison, a term later extended to 18 and a half years. He was quietly released from jail in 2008 after witnesses recanted their testimony and said they had been tortured into implicating him. Ms. Tsulukiani said she had not examined the file closely. But she believes that Mr. Sharmaidze was jailed only because “they badly needed to find someone” to take the blame for a killing that severely embarrassed Georgia’s leader at the time, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister, and raised concerns in Washington about his grip on the country. Georgia’s justice system has long been tainted by political meddling, and a primary purpose of Mr. Ivanishvili’s visit to Strasbourg last week was to assure European officials and legislators that his new government was committed to the rule of law. His political opponents, notably Mikheil Saakashvili, the country’s pro-American president, accuse him of using the judiciary to settle political scores. A number of Mr. Saakashvili’s allies have been placed under investigation and, according to Mr. Ivanishvili, there is a “high probability” that the president, who last week started a visit to the United States, will be prosecuted for corruption and other misdeeds, including the use of violence by riot police officers against a Tbilisi protest in 2011. Giga Bokeria, President Saakashvili’s national security adviser, said the prosecution of the president’s supporters gave a “clear picture of at best selective justice, or at worst outright political persecution.” He said “no credible evidence” had been presented against Mr. Saakashvili, who has not been charged with any crime, and described the prime minister’s remarks as “just another attempt to discredit a major political rival.” Mr. Pullara said in a telephone interview that getting to the bottom of Mr. Woodruff’s death “is a litmus test of the new government’s commitment to justice.” Though released from jail, Mr. Sharmaidze has not been formally cleared of murder. “His life has been destroyed,” Mr. Pullara said. He described him as a victim of a “cruel compromise for reasons of expediency” — a fall guy who satisfied both Washington’s desire for a culprit and Moscow’s desire that Russia be kept distant from any hint of involvement in the murder. Rivalry between Russia and the United States has weighed heavily on Georgia since the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991. In the turbulent years that followed, Washington moved quickly to establish a strong presence in the former Soviet republic, including the establishment of a C.I.A. post in the Georgian capital headed by Mr. Woodruff, who was the agency’s director for the Caucasus region. Shortly before his death, he was the host of a visit to Tbilisi by Aldrich Ames, a senior C.I.A. official who was later jailed as a spy for Moscow. Mr. Woodruff was hit in the head by a single bullet while sitting in the back seat of a car driven by Eldar Gogoladze, a veteran Soviet security officer who was working at the time as the head of Mr. Shevardnadze’s security detail. Washington and Moscow continue to spar over Georgia and are both watching closely how Mr. Ivanishvili handles relations between the two former cold war enemies. A wealthy businessman who made most of his money in Russia, Mr. Ivanishvili has sought to warm previously ice-cold relations with Moscow. But in an interview, he said his government intended to maintain Georgia’s pro-Western orientation and would press ahead with efforts to join NATO, despite objections from Moscow. He said the Boston Marathon bombing showed that Russia, the United States and Georgia shared a common foe in Chechen militancy, and he pledged to end what he said was the previous government’s tolerance of Chechen separatist fighters passing through Georgia. “We know that Georgia was used for years as a transit point for fighters,” Mr. Ivanishvili said. “We will stop this by all means. This will not happen now.” He added that an investigation was under way into suspicions that “the previous government was cooperating with the fighters.” Describing Mr. Saakashvili as “a professional liar,” he said officials in Washington and Europe had been “misled” about his own government’s intentions by the charismatic, English-speaking president. “They now see his real face,” said the prime minister. Mr. Bokeria, Mr. Saakashvili’s national security adviser, dismissed the prime minister’s comments as “politically motivated accusations” that had no basis in fact. “There has never been any credible evidence that Georgia under President Saakashvili has allowed any armed groups to cross into Russian territory,” he said. “There are no credible facts to back these assertions because they are completely false.” |