A Tajik official has got a lengthy jail term for illegal purchase and sale of lands in the Roudaki district.
A court in Roudaki district has sentenced Director of the Agricultural Machinery Testing Center at the Ministry of Agriculture, H. Rahimov, to twenty-five years in prison, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office press center.
His accomplices O. Sadriddinov, O. Sharofiddinov, I. Ubaidov and S, Mirzoyev have reportedly been sentenced to 24, 16, eight and five years in prison respectively.
The convicts have been found guilty of illegally selling a total of 7.43 hectares of lands in the Roudaki district.
The court reportedly proved that they had earned 245,500 U.S. dollars and 13,500 somoni from those illegal bargains.
Mr. Rahimov had headed the Agricultural Machinery Testing Center since 1995.
Last year alone, prosecutors revealed 960 cases of illegal purchase and sale of lands for a total cost of 45 million somoni, the press center said.
Recall President Emomali Rahmon have sharply criticized the cases of illegal purchase and sale of lands in the Roudaki district. His criticism came during an address to a meeting with district administrators and local population in the district on October 3.
Emomali Rahmon, in particular, noted that more than 2,500 hectares of lands had been illegally sold in the district over the past twenty years.
“Three hectares were sold last year, 32 hectares were sold in 2015 and 2.5 hectares have been sold over the first nine months of this year,” the president noted.
“Over the past three years, fifty-eight farming units have been abolished in the Roudaki district due to the sale of their lands,” Rahmon said.
