The New York Times has published an article about the promise of Georgian government to investigate the death of a C.I.A officer Freddie Woodruff. The report is based on the interview with the Minister of Justice of Georgia Tea Tsulukiani.

The murder occurred 20 years ago and Georgian minister says it was not properly investigated.

`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.

Freddie Woodruff was killed on August 8, 1993. According to the official version of the investigation, Woodruff was shot dead by a drunken Georgian. 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.

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