A court in the Tajik city of Buston (formerly Chkalovsk) has extended the prison term to a Tajik jihadist who recruited his countrymen to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) extremist group.
In February 2016, a court in the Tajik northern city of Istiqlol (formerly Taboshar) sentenced Navrouzsho Galabonov to fourteen years in prison. He got a lengthy jail term for an attempt to travel to Syria to join the ISIS extremist group.
The Buston court on May 15 extended Galabonov’s jail term to seventeen years. The sentence followed his conviction on charges of organizing a criminal group (Article 187 of Tajikistan’s Penal Code), document forgery (Article 340 of Tajikistan’s Penal Code) and illegal involvement of Tajik nationals in foreign military conflicts (Article 401 (1) of Tajikistan’s Penal Code).
Judge Nargis Yodgorzoda, who presided over the trial, says Galabonov was actively participating in recruiting Tajik nationals to the ISIS extremist group. “His brother, Zoirsho Galabonov, is currently in Syria and Navrouzsho Galabonov has sent several Tajik nationals to Syria. Some of them were detained by special services in Moscow and in Belarus,” Ms. Yodgorzoda noted.
Navrouzsho Galabonov himself was detained by Belarusian law enforcement authorities in December 2014 and extradited to Tajikistan.
