On Tuesday, April 17, the Dushanbe city court opened a criminal trial into the murder of a 24-year-old Parviz Davlatbekov, which is also known as “Santa Claus murder”.
There are four defendants at the bar – Farrukh Samiev, Sharaf Davlatov, Hasan Abdurashidov, all accused of hooliganism, and a teenaged B.Sh. who is facing murder charges.
Apart from Abdurashidov, who pled guilty in the course of the trial, others pled partially guilty. The search for other persons involved is still under way, all of them face charges by default.
Judge Fahriddin Dadometov is presiding over the trial. When all participants were presented and charges announced, Parviz Davlatbekov’s friend Jovid Gadomamadov, who was at the scene together with the victim, appeared before the court.
“On December 31 we decided to say Happy New Year to our relatives and Parviz even dressed as Santa Claus. He left his aunt together with two of his friends in Profsoyuz region and I was coming up to them from another side. Then I noticed they were surrounded by approximately 20 young people. Later I was told that one of them – Farrukh Samiev – asked “Santa” to give him a New Year gift. Parviz told them that there are no gifts and young people started to outrage him and his mother. The conflict was inevitable, but we drag Parviz out of the crowd saying that real men do not attack one by the crowd. We also tried to calm the crowd down and told them to stay away from any conflicts in such a happy day. Later Farrukh asked Parviz to take a walk and they went towards the entrance of a nearby 12-storey house. We tried to calm down the others not letting them go towards the entrance. However, there were too many of them and after a while they all ran to the entrance. They started to fight. When we ran to the entrance door someone shouted that the police was coming and the crowd disappeared. When they left the scene we found Parviz lying in his blood. This happened in a period of five minutes. We grabbed him and put into a taxi and delivered him to Karabolo hospital where the doctors started to operate him. The next day Parviz died in hospital without regaining consciousness,” Gadomamadov told the court.
A teenaged B.Sh. is now accused of stabbing the victim to death. “He confessed to stabbing Parviz during the fight,” the prosecutor said.
At the same time, Mavluda Sharipova, the 16-year-old defendant’s mother, told the reporters she does not believe her son could commit this murder.
“That very evening I and my son visited my mother who lives in the 12th microregion. My son noticed through the window that something was happening outside and went out just to see what was going on. He returned back after a while and three days later the police came to our house and told us that my son is suspected of murder. People say he was threatened and forced to confess to this murder he did not commit since he is a teenager and the court will make an allowance for him,” she said.
Sharifa Hudobakhsheva, Parviz’ aunt, who lives in the house where the tragedy took place, hopes that the trial will be fair. “Let the court decide who is to blame. I hope that those who killed our Parviz will get fair punishment,” she added.
