DUSHANBE, December 1, 2011, Asia-Plus — The Tajik authorities have decided to extradite three suspects in the killing of a former Kyrgyz official, who were detained in Dushanbe, to Kyrgyzstan.
Tajikistan’s Interior Ministry yesterday made a decision to extradite three Kyrgyz nationals, who were detained in Dushanbe on September 14, to Kyrgyzstan.
Major-General Jourakhon Zoirov, the head of the Tajik Interior Ministry organized crime control department (UBOP), told Asia-Plus today that the Kyrgyz authorities issued an international warrant for arrest of those three Kyrgyz nationals – Kadyrbek Dosonov, 40, Chyngyz Jumagulov, 30, and Mirlan Shakuliyev, 25 – who are suspected of having been involved in the killing of former Kyrgyz presidential chief of staff Medet Sadyrkulov in 2009.
We will recall that these three men who allegedly belong to a Kyrgyz criminal group were detained in the basement of a building in Dushanbe’s Sino district in a joint operation by Tajik and Kyrgyz police on September 14.
Sadyrkulov, who served as presidential administration head under Bakiyev, and two of his associates were found dead in a burned-out car in March 2009, shortly after Sadyrkulov resigned to join the anti-Bakiyev opposition.
According to Radio Liberty, at the time, officials said the deaths were the result of a traffic accident. But Sadyrkulov”s relatives challenged that finding, saying the bodies were in positions indicating that the victims were already dead when the car caught fire.
The investigation into Sadyrkulov”s death resumed in April 2010 after Bakiyev fled the country in the wake of antigovernment demonstrations.
The Tajik UBOP chief Jourakhon Zoirov noted today that representatives of the Kyrgyz law enforcement authorities will arrive in Dushanbe within the next few days to extradite the detainees to Bishkek.
Meanwhile, Zoirov added that the issue of extradition of Tajik jailbreak fugitive detained in Kyrgyzstan has not yet been solved.
One of 25 escapees from a high-profile jailbreak last year, Russian national Nizami Abiyev, was detained in the Kyrgyz capital on July 12 this year.
“According to information we received, Abiyev applied to the Kyrgyz authorities for political asylum,” the UBOP chief noted. He, however, expressed confidence that the issue of extradition of Abiyev to Tajikistan would be positively solved in the near future.
We will recall that 25 convicts serving long jail terms escaped from the State Committee for National Security (SCNS)’s detention facility in Dushanbe in the early hours of morning of August 23 2010, killing four prison guards. Dressing in camouflage, the escapees fled toward eastern Tajikistan. The majority of the fugitives were among 46 people convicted by the Supreme Court on August 19, 2010 of terrorism, drug trafficking, and seeking the forcible overthrow of the government. The escaped prisoners include six Russian citizens, four Afghans, and two Uzbeks. Most were accused of participating in the 2009 armed rebellion in Tavildara.
President Emomali Rahmon fired almost the entire leadership of the security services after the jailbreak.
Eight of the fugitives have been killed since the jailbreak and the rest captured. The last of the jailbreak fugitives was captured in Tajikistan on November 13.
In early May this year, the Supreme Court’s military board jailed four men for life in connection with the mass jailbreak. Three other men were sentenced to 30 years in prison for their part in the escape from the SCNS-run prison in Dushanbe. The court also found three other men guilty of helping the escapees reach safe locations. The sentences were handed down on May 3 and officially confirmed on May 4.
