DUSHANBE, July 23, 2012, Asia-Plus — Confederates of the chief of the Ishkashim border unit Tolib Ayombekov, who was former field commander of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) in Gorno Badakhshan, are suspected of killing the chief of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS)’s office in Gorno Badakhshan, General Abdullo Nazarov. Ayombekov allegedly does not want to give up them to the law enforcement authorities. Ayombekov himself says they do not trust in the law enforcement authorities.
We will recall that Major-General Abdullo Nazarov, chief of the SCNS’s office in Gorno Badakhshan, was stabbed to death on the afternoon of July 21. Two security officers that were accompanying the general just sustained light wounds and refused hospitalization.
“A group of unknown persons stopped his car, when he was retuning from business trip to the Ishkashim district,” said Nozirjon Bouriyev, a spokesman for SCNS. “They took General Nazarov out of car and stabbed him several times.”
According to one of versions, persons involved in tobacco smuggling in the region, killed Nazarov, the SCNS spokesman added. He refrained from giving further details of the incident.
Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service reports that Nazarov had been a KGB agent during Soviet era. But in 1991, he publicly accused the KGB of killing protesters in Tajikistan’s capital of Dushanbe during several days of demonstrations there in February 1990. He was fired from the KGB after making those accusations.
In 1992, Nazarov joined the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) that was opposed to Tajikistan”s Soviet-era rulers. From 1992 to 1997, as civil was raged in Tajikistan, Nazarov remained outside of the country. He never confirmed his whereabouts during those years.
After the signing in Moscow of a General Peace Agreement between the Tajik government and the United Tajik Opposition, Nazarov returned to Tajikistan”s security service under a deal in the accord which allowed 30 percent of government posts to be named by Tajikistan”s opposition. He served as chief of SCNS’s office in the northern province of Sughd and as a deputy of the chairman of the SCNS.
In 2010, Nazarov was appointed to head SCNS’s office in the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (Gorno Badakhshan of GBAO).
Within months of that appointment, during the summer of 2010, authorities in Kyrgyzstan accused Nazarov of offering a safe haven to the relatives of former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in Gorno Badakhshan. Abdullo Nazarov categorically denied those accusations.
Meanwhile a reliable source in Gorno Badakhshan says that confederates of the chief of the Ishkashim border unit Tolib Ayombekov, who was former field commander of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), are involved in the killing of General Nazarov. “Tolib Ayombekov does not want to give up them to the law enforcement authorities,” said the source. “We were conducting negotiations with him and at first he seemed to have agreed, but when several helicopters with servicemen of “Alpha Group” (SCNS special unit) on board landed at the Khorog airport in the morning of July 22 Ayombekov refused to continue negotiations. However, we are trying to persuade him to give up those persons.”
According to him, Ayombekov considers that the SCNS special unit servicemen have been sent to the region not for four persons; they have been sent to the region to arrest the former field commanders, including him. “That is why Ayombekov does not want to give up those persons to the law enforcement authorities,” said the source. “If Ayombekov refuses to give up his persons, military force will be used against them.”
There are rumors in Khorog that the conflict between General Nazarov and Ayombekov’s confederates has resulted from tobacco smuggling. General Nazarov was allegedly organizing channels for tobacco smuggling; the last consignment was allegedly seized in Kulob that caused a showdown between the general and the cargo owners. According to some sources, nobody stopped general’s car and all of them were there for meeting to discuss the cargo issue.
Tolib Ayombekov himself says that no showdowns were between his confederates and General Nazarov for tobacco goods. “It was just an accident but they want to use this accident to purge the region of former field commanders,” Ayombekov told Asia-Plus in an interview. “It is not true that I do not want to conduct negotiations and give up those persons,” said Ayombekov, “But their relatives do not want to give up them because they do not trust in the law enforcement authorities and they do not believe that the investigation will be unbiased. General Nazarov was heavily drunk and police officers that were at the checkpoint office in the Ishkashim district confirmed this. When General Nazarov came to the Nevodak area (outskirts of Khorog) he saw those guys and began to insult them. Since he was in sports dress and with hood on his head, nobody knew him. Nazarov began to insult the guys and they lost their cool and attacked him. He fell and struck his head on a stone. It was a fatal injury. But he also had a chest wound, but nobody know how that wound appeared. We asked to carry out medical examination but they said that the medical examination will be carried out in Dushanbe…”
