Three new defense lawyers will represent detained top managers of Umed-88, one of Tajikistan’s largest gas retailers, in an investigation.
Odinayev and ibrohimov have refused services of their defense lawyer Abubakr Qulmatov and hired three new defense lawyers.
Defense lawyers Khisrav Ayubi, Haqnazar Sharipov and Ubaidullo Latipov now represent them in the investigation.
Recall, things started looking grim for Umed-88 after President Emomali Rahmon harshly criticized the company owner Rajabali Odinayev during a meeting with local businesspeople in Dushanbe on October 14.
The president, in particular, noted that Umed-88 had some years ago received a 170 million somoni loan at 18 percent interest with facilitation from the Ministry of Finance, but that the company had failed to pay the money back. “Sixty million somoni of this money have gone to paying off debts to Tojik Sodirot Bonk (TSB), and 25 million has gone to Amonatbonk. The rest he [Odinayev] just spent for his own needs. He should answer before the law. Government money is the money of the people,” Emomali Rahmon said.
After president’s criticism directed at the founder of gas retailer Umed-88, workers started to take down Umed-88 signs across the country. The company’s head office in Dushanbe has been closed.
Ten days later, the anticorruption agency said that Rajabali Odinayev and Umed-88 director Idibek Ibrohimov had been arrested.
Odinayev and Ibrohimov were detained on October 14 right after the president harshly criticized the company.
According to information posted on the website of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption, Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) NBO Roghun, Ministry of Finance and Umed-88 LLC on May 15, 2015 signed a trilateral loan agreement, under which OJSC NBO Roghun acted as creditor and the Ministry of Finance and Umed-88 LLC acted as borrowers (Most likely, the Ministry of Finance acted as guarantor – Asia-Plus).
The document provided for granting a 171 million somoni loan to Umed-88 LLC for enhancement of the country’s agrarian-and-industrial complex by means of providing farming units with diesel fuel. The borrowers should have repaid the loan not later than December 31, 2015.
According to the anticorruption agency, Umed-88 top managers received a large state loan illegally. Umed-88 director Idibek Ibrohimov, the gas retailer owner Rajabali Odinayev and other top managers of the company are charged with untargeted use of the loan. In May-June 2015, they reportedly used 74 million somoni of the loan to repay the company’s debts to Amonatbonk (Tajikistan’s savings bank) and Tojik Sodirot Bonk (TSB).
Criminal proceedings have been instituted against Odinayev and Ibrohimov under the provisions of two articles of Tajikistan’s Penal Code: Article 246 (3) – large scale loan embezzlement; and Article 295 (2) – abuse of office entailing serious circumstances.
Meanwhile, Qulmatov noted last month that before the arrest of Odinayev and Ibrohimov the company had repaid more than 33 million somoni to the Ministry of Finance.
He also said that Tajikistan’s High Economic Court in June last year assessed Uned-88’s assets at more than 173 million somoni and seized them following the request by the Ministry of Finance. “After the seizure of the company’s properties they might not have arrested the company managers,” Qulmatov noted.
