Presidential candidate beaten up
The winner of the presidential elections in South Ossetia, Alla Dzhioyeva has regained consciousness in the intensive care of a local hospital.
Opposition leader, who was preparing for her inaugural ceremony that was due to be held today, was brutally beaten up in her headquarters late last night during the so-called special operation of the riot police. Dzhioeva had a stroke.
"Her condition is grave, but she is conscious," the chief doctor of the regional hospital said on Friday, adding that the controversial opposition leader might be transferred to Russia for further treatment.
An assistant to Dzhioyeva said the politician was brutally beaten during her arrest on Thursday.
"We were working at our headquarters when the special police forces in masks broke in," the assistant, Violetta Dasaeva, told Komsomolskaya Pravda radio on Thursday. "They started kicking Alla Alekseevna [Dzhioyeva], hitting her with a rifle butt...They grabbed her like a cat, tied her feet and arms and threw her into the car," Dasaeva told the radio station, adding that Dzhioyeva's husband and son had also been beaten.
Dzhioyeva, who won a disputed presidential vote last November, was hospitalized on Thursday when law enforcers tried to take her into custody for questioning on coup attempt charges.
South Ossetian prosecutors claimed that the opposition leader was summoned for questioning as an eyewitness in an attempt to seize the Central Election Commission's building late last year.
Dzhioyeva, an anti-corruption crusader, scored an unexpected win over Anatoly Bibilov, Russia's favored candidate, in a runoff vote in November's presidential elections in the Georgian breakaway territory of South Ossetia.
However, the region's Supreme Court declared the results invalid after Bibilov accused Dzhioyeva of vote-rigging and barred her from the March elections. She in response denounced the ruling and declared herself president.
In an interview with the Russian Kommersant business daily prior to her arrest on Thursday, Dzhioyeva said that she expected provocation from the security services on the day of her inauguration.
"There is a pressure from all around - informational, psychological. Everybody is talking about worsening situation, bloodshed. And we are peacefully sitting and preparing for the inauguration," Dzhioyeva told the daily.
