DUSHANBE, July 16, 2009, Asia-Plus — Deputy Director of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption, Abdurahim Abudlhasanov, told a press conference in Dushanbe today that only one prosecutor has been detained on corruption charges since amendments were made to the Constitutional Law “On Bodies of Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Tajikistan” in April this year.
“I mean the criminal case of a senior investigator with the Vahdat prosecutor’s office,” said Abdulhasanov, “Court has already considered the case and he has been convicted.”
We will recall that the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower chamber of parliament) on April 30 this year endorsed amendments to the Constitutional Law “On Bodies of Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Tajikistan,” giving the head of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption the right to institute criminal proceedings against prosecutors suspected of having been involved in corruption.
Speaking at the parliamentary session, the anticorruption agency chief Sherkhon Salimzoda noted that before that the agency could only investigate such cases but it did not have the right to institute criminal proceedings against prosecutors. MP Abdumannon Kholiqov noted that under the present law on prosecutor’s offices, only the country’s chief prosecutor had the right to institute criminal proceedings against prosecutors. According to him, amendments made to the law would promote further strengthening of fight against corruption in prosecutor’s offices.
