DUSHANBE, June 1, 2016, Asia-Plus – Relatives of Yoqub Salimov, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison on April 25, 2005, hope that he will be released this month.
“Under documents and the case materials he should be released on June 21,” Salimov’s sister, Shahri Temourova, told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to her, Yoqu Salimov has asked them to prepare his clothes. “These days are the hardest ones in his life and he cannot wait to go at large,” Shahri Temourova said.
Meanwhile, representatives of the Prosecutor-General’s Office and the Ministry of Justice have found it difficult to give the exact date for discharge of Yoqub Salimov.
Representative of the Prosecutor-General’s Office say that it is prerogative of the Ministry of Justice.
An official source at the Ministry of Justice, for his part, says it is impossible to give the exact date for discharge of Yoqub Saimov “because there are some disagreements on dates in the case materials.” “However, there is no doubt that he will be released this summer,” the source added.
Yoqub Salimov was one of top field commanders in the Popular Front, a paramilitary group that supported the government during the five-year civil conflict in 1992-1997.
Yoqub Salimov was one of the most powerful figures in Tajik politics after civil war broke out in the spring of 1992. He was once Tajikistan’s interior minister, ambassador to Turkey, and chairman of the state customs committee.
In 1990 Yoqub Salimov was convicted for taking part in Dushanbe riots. When Tajik Civil War broke out, Salimov was released from prison, and became one of leaders of the Popular Front. In 1997 he was charged with attempting a coup d”etat. Afterwards he fled Tajikistan, but was arrested in Moscow in 2003. Since July 2003, Salimov had been held at Moscow”s Lefortovo prison.
On February 24, 2004, he was extradited to Tajikistan. After a five-month trial that was held behind closed doors, the Supreme Court of Tajikistan found Salimov guilty of treason, banditry, and abuse of office and sentenced him to 15 years in prison on April 25, 2005.
Yoqub Salimov’s prison term was cut by two years in August 2011 under the partial amnesty granted to him.
