Religious sect probed in Toronto teen disappearance

Search for Mariam Makhniashvili intensifies

The search for Mariam Makhniashvili has been expanded internationally to include a possible link with a religious sect from the Republic of Georgia.

Toronto Crime Stoppers has teamed up with Crime Stoppers International in the hope of finding clues to the missing teen.
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Search for Mariam Makhniashvili, missing 17yr old Toronto student intensified

The 17-year-old Grade 11 student disappeared after walking to Forest Hill Collegiate, near Bathurst Street and Eglinton Avenue West, on Sept. 14.

Toronto police are also investigating a possible link between a religious leader from the Republic of Georgia and Mariam’s disappearance.

Vakhtang Makhniashvili [Mariam's father - RNB] said he first heard about a Georgian evangelical leader with links to Toronto on an internet forum. Georgians who live in Toronto were discussing it.
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Reports in the Georgian media recounted how a group of women left for Canada back in the mid-1990s with Rezo Bakradze, who was a university professor and head of a religious sect.

Roman Kutsia said he hasn’t seen his daughter Natalia in 15 years. She was part of the group who left Georgia in 1994 to follow Bakradze — a man described as charismatic and highly intelligent.

“This man has enchanted our children. They all live in illusions. He forbids them to contact us. He’s like an idol for them,” said Kutsia, speaking through an interpreter during an interview with CBC News in Tblisi. Natalia Kutsia was one of the 35 students who left with Bakradze and lost touch with their families.

Some of the followers moved to Australia — others to Toronto.

Bakradze is also known as Teofile Malakia and videos posted on YouTube matching that name reveal a person who fuses Christian teachings with a pro-Russian emphasis in Georgian politics.

But a Georgian journalist, Goderdzi Sharashia, who has covered the Bakradze story says the Makhniashvili case doesn’t appear to be the same.
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