DUSHANBE, July 18, 2008, Asia-Plus — The trial of two Tajik nationals, charged with killing of a TV Channel One reporter Ilyas Shurpayev, begins in the Supreme Court today.
According to the Supreme Court, the trial will be open and journalists are allowed to attend it with permission of judge taking in the trial.
“The trial will be held in two languages – Russian and Tajik, because the main case materials collected by investigators from the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office are in the Russian language,” said the source at the supreme court. “Besides, the defendants worked in Russia for along time and know Russian well.”
The brother of the killed journalist has been invited to attend the trial; however, it is not known yet whether he will arrive in Dushanbe or not.
As it had been reported earlier, the case of Masrurjon Yatimov and Najmiddin Muhiddinov, charged with killing of Ilyas Shurpayev, moved to the Supreme Court on June 30.
We will recall that two Tajik nationals – Masrurjon Yatimov and Najmiddin Muhiddinov – were detained on March 29 on suspicion of having killed a Russian journalist.
The two men allegedly killed Russian television journalist Ilyas Shurpayev, who was found strangled in his Moscow apartment. Russian firefighters discovered the body of Shurpayev on March 21 when they arrived to extinguish a fire in his apartment that had apparently been set by the killers in an attempt to cover up their crime. Shurpayev had moved to Moscow from Daghestan, where he worked as a reporter for the Russia”s Channel One television. The men reportedly tortured Shurpayev before killing him during the night of March 20-21 and stole some 100,000 rubles ($4,260) from him. Later, Tajik police arrested a third suspect in the killing, Muhiddinov”s brother.
On completion of the preliminary investigation, formal charges were brought against Masrurjon Yatimov, 24, and Najmiddin Muhiddinov, 20, under the provisions of three articles of the Penal Code of Tajikistan – Article 104, Part 2 (murder), Article 249 (robbery) and Article 255 (deliberate property destruction or damage)
According to specialists, if convicted, Yatimov and Muhiddinov cold face up to 25 years in prison each on these charges.
