On April 1, 2013, Public Defender of Georgia Ucha Nanuashvili called on the Parliament of Georgia to set up an investigative commission to look into armed clash and events leading up to that incident, saying that his own probe revealed circumstances contradicting official version of events that was offered by the previous government. In an 800-page report, Nanuashvili alleged that the Interior Ministry's counter-terrorist department itself had recruited 120 local Kists, Chechens (including veterans living abroad) and other North Caucasian refugees. The recruits would be then armed and trained by Georgian personnel and Chechen veterans at the Vaziani Military Base and at Shavnabada in early 2012. In August, a group of 16 Vainakhs decided to cross the Russian border on their own initiative, but were refused a passage and intercepted by Georgian Interior Ministry special forces deployed there by helicopter. After the negotiations through prominent Chechen mediators did not bring a breakthrough in the standoff, as the militants responded to the demands they would disarm by insisting they would surrender their weapons only after they reached Pankisi, seven (not 11) of them and three Georgians (including two handlers of the gunmen) were killed, and the rest of them were then escorted to Turkey. The parliament declined Nanuashvili's proposal on the grounds that an investigation by prosecutor's office is under way.