In February 2009 Inal Khashig was the centre of a controversy when several media, among which Caucasian Knot and Abaza TV, reported that on 6 February, while at the embankment in Sukhumi, Khashig had been invited into a car containing David Bagapsh, a nephew of Sergei Bagapsh and head of his presidential guard, Kondrat Samsonia, General Director of A-Mobile and deputy of the Sukhumi Municipal Assembly and Adgur Tarba, head of the Municipal Advertising Agency.

The direct motivation for the threat was said to be the critical article Беспрограммная любовь (Love without programme) published on 3 February in Chegemskaya Pravda about the congress of United Abkhazia held on 27 January.

[4] Likewise, opposition politicians requested the law-enforcement agencies to intervene and members of the Public Chamber called upon all political actors to settle disputes within the law only.

[6] Presidential spokesman Kristian Bzhania denied the involvement of people from the president's entourage in the incident, and he said that he had spoken with Inal Khashig on the telephone and the latter had not mentioned the purported events.

Khashig stated that he had not responded to the reports earlier as he did not want to exacerbate an already dramatic situation, and that he was forced to change his mind when the story grew out of proportion.