DUSHANBE, March 19, 2015, Asia-Plus – The 37-year-old national of Tajikistan, Suhrob Kholov, who is wanted by Tajik authorities for banditry, has been arrested by Russian police in Yekaterinburg, the capital of Russia’s Sverdlovsk Oblast.
The Russian Interior Ministry’s Directorate for Sverdlovsk Oblast says Kholov is suspected of participating in armed attacks in Tajikistan.
Internationally wanted Kholov was reportedly detained in an apartment, where he was living with his family.
A report released by the Russian Interior Ministry’s Directorate for Sverdlovsk Oblast notes that from 1996 to 2005, Suhrob Kholov was member of an organized criminal group led by Abdullo Rahimov, also known as Mullo Abdullo, and participated in armed seizures of property and money of citizens in Tajikistan.
According to the report, the prosecutor’s office in the Tajik city of Roghun on March 10, 2014 instituted criminal proceedings against Suhrob Kholov under the provisions of three articles of Tajikistan’s Penal Code: Article 186 (2) – banditry; Article 32 (2) – criminal attempt; and Article 104 (2) – attempted homicide by a group persons.
We will recall that Abdullo Rahimov, widely known as Mullo Abdullo, was killed on April 15, 2011 along with 14 of his confederates in the Rasht district, some 50 kilometers west of Gharm, the administrative center of Rasht district. Tajik authorities said Mullo Abdullo and his followers were behind the 2011 attack on Tajik Army forces in Kamarob Gorge in the Rasht district in which at least 26 soldiers died.
Mullo Abdullo was one of United Tajik Opposition (UTO) field commanders during the country’s 1992-1997 civil war. He never accepted the peace treaty and reportedly fled to Afghanistan. In 2009, a few reports surfaced that he had returned to Tajikistan and was hiding in the mountains around the Rasht district.
