DUSHANBE, May 25. “Asia Plus” — Ex-chairman of Sughd District Abdujalil Homidov died this morning in one of Dushanbe prisons after a long disease, Ozodi radio reports citing Homidov’s relatives as source.
The Department of Corrections under the Ministry of Justice of Tajikistan has neither confirmed nor denied the information.
In June 2002 Abdujalil Homidov was sentenced by the Supreme Court of Tajikistan to 18 years in prison. Former head of Sughd district and his accomplices were sentenced under several articles of the Criminal Code, including terrorism, attempt to murder government officials and organization of armed groups.
According to investigators, in summer 1997 straight after the signature of the Peace and National Consent Treaty in Tajikistan Abdujalil Homidov began to prepare for assassination of chairman of Sughd district Kasym Kasymov, Dushanbe mayor Mahmadsaid Ubaidullaev and Tajik Minister of Emergency Situations Mirzo Zieyev. According to the investigation, he formed an illegal armed group of 11 people.
Homidov was arrested in December 2000 upon his arrival to Khujand for funeral ceremony of his sister. He arrived from Tashkent where he was reportedly hiding from Tajik law enforcement agencies for two years.
Background: Abdujalil Homidov – former head of Sughd district and simultaneously the biggest businessman in northern part of Tajikistan. He used to head the Kairakkum industrial and agrarian association which united construction, mediation and other enterprises and companies, including cotton growing company which used drip irrigation and a local TV company.
Homidov was involved in almost all joint projects with foreign entrepreneurs.
Abdujalil Homidov was born in 1945 in a farmer’s family in Ispisar village of Leninabad district, a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since 1968, in 1974 he graduated from the Tajik Agrarian Institute. He worked as agronomist, senior agronomist in his native region. Since 1978 up to 1988 he worked as the director of Syrdarya vegetable growing collective farm.
In 1988 he becomes director general of the Kairakkum industrial and agrarian association. In 1992 he was elected chairman of the regional executive committee of Leninabad district.
