 A poster for Mariam Makhniashvili, the Toronto teen who has been missing for two weeks. (Sun Media/Michael Peake, file)
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TORONTO -- The parents of missing teen Mariam Makhniashvili called a Georgian TV channel hoping to find out more about a Georgian religious leader said to be based in Toronto.
According to reports, the religious leader reportedly convinced 35 university students to break contact with their families. However, Mariam's father doubts the figure has anything to do with his daughter's disappearance.
Det.-Sgt. Dan Nealon, the lead detective on the Mariam task force, said police are aware of the story of the religious leader, but that any possible connection to Mariam's vanishing is speculation.
A day after removing its command post from outside the family's north Toronto home, Nealon said yesterday police are getting tips and possible sightings of the girl from across Canada and that new information is coming in.
"There's still a lot of angles for us to work," Nealon said.
On the two-week anniversary of his daughter's disappearance, Mariam's dad, Vakhtang Makhniashvili, 49, said he is holding out hope the girl is alive. "That's a hard question that's constantly on our minds," Makhniashvili said. "It's too difficult to think about."
Mariam, 17, vanished on Sept. 14 after walking to school, Forest Hill C.I., with her brother.
Makhniashvili said he and wife Lela Tabidze called Tbilisi-based Imedi TV last week to find out more about a religious leader, who in 1994 convinced 35 students to leave Georgia with him, according to an Imedi report.
"We don't know about him, we just heard about him," Makhniashvili said yesterday. "In Georgia, there were several rumors about him."
Makhniashvili was able to find out that the religious leader is a priest at an evangelical church, but he didn't know where.
The Sun was unable to confirm existence of the religious figure in Toronto, but the story continues to be discussed in Toronto's Georgian community and in Georgia.
Goderdzi Sharashia, a journalist with the Tbilisi-based Imedi TV, reported several months ago on the man, a former Georgia Technical University professor. Sharashia said yesterday the man is believed to be living in the Toronto area, but didn't have contact information for him.
According to Sharashia, the charismatic and persuasive priest left Georgia in June 1994 with about 35 students. Some of the students are now in Canada and the U.S. "These people don't have contact with their families; he doesn't give them permission to call their relatives," Sharashia said through a translator.
BRETT.CLARKSON@SUNMEDIA.CA
