DUSHANBE, August 11, 2015, Asia-Plus — Today the court has made a decision on “economic” legal proceeding that was taken against Zaid Saidov, the entrepreneur in disfavor convicted for 26 years of imprisonment.
In spite of the fact that the court had sentenced Zaid Saidov to 20 years of imprisonment for the economic crime, he has now been given three more years of imprisonment. According to the Tajik legislation the overall period of imprisonment should not exceed 30 years and that is why the court has made a decision of inflicting the punishment of three more years of imprisonment.
Thus, Zaid Saidov is to spend 29 years in prison. All his property will be confiscated.
Previously the public prosecutor asked the court to sentence Saidov to 25 more years, payout of 34 million somoni and complete confiscation of the businessman’s property.
The new charge is based on the construction of complex “Dushanbe Plaza” with forgery of documentation and illegal privatization of “Tajikatlas” during the period when Saidov was the Minister of Industry of the RT.
As “AP” was informed by the relatives of Zaid Saidov, the ambulatory court of the Supreme Court was held in the detention facility of the State Committee on National Security behind the closed doors.
The speech of Zaid Saidov consisted of almost 100 pages that the accused was reading during three days. In his speech Zaid Saidov declared that this process is a logical continuation of the initial charge. “I am probably guilty of deciding to invest all my means from abroad in Tajikistan and attracting investments of my friends”, he said, reminiscing the words from Loiq Sherali’s poem: “My guilt is in me being born Tajik”.
In his speech he once again rejected all the charges against him and added that he was doing a business before he was appointed to be the minister and that all his property was gained when being a businessman. Zaid Saidov asked the court to take all this information into account when pronouncing a sentence.
