DUSHANBE, September 12, 212, Asia-Plus — The Supreme Court has sentenced fifteen members of banned Islamist group, Jamaat Ansarullah.
An official source at the Supreme Court says the trial was held at pretrial detention facility # 1 of the Ministry of Justice behind closed doors.
“Fifteen persons were on trial; twelve of them were sentenced to prison terms between five and 24 years. One defendant received a two-year suspended sentence for not reporting a crime while two others – Muhammad Qayumov and Salim Nourov — were fined amounts equal to 800 and 500 accounting indices respectively,” the source said.
We will recall that the trial began on August 30 and is the first against alleged group members since it was banned in May.
Most of the defendants were arrested last year during a special operation targeting Mullo Abdullo and his confederates in the Rasht Valley (eastern Tajikistan).
According to the Prosecutor-General’s Office of Tajikistan, Jamaat Ansarullah is the branch of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and it is financed by Al-Qaeda network.
Jamaat Ansarullah became known in Tajikistan after the group claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in the northern Tajik city of Khujand at the start of September 2010. International media sources reported Ron September 9, 2010 that unknown Islamist militant group that called itself Jamaat Ansarullah in Tajikistan claimed responsibility for the suicide car bombing in Khujand, the capital of Sughd province. Jamaat Ansarullah in Tajikistan, in a statement on the unofficial Islamist website www.kavkazcenter.com, said a single suicide bomber drove a car into the police station in Khujand on September 3 and blew himself up.
Besides, Jamaat Ansarullah last year issued several videos calling on Tajik nationals to embrace holy war.
Meanwhile, an official site of Jamaat Ansarullah –
www.irshod.com
— is still available to visitors in Tajikistan. This website should have been blocked in May following ruling handed down by the Supreme Court. The Communications Service under the Government of Tajikistan was ordered to block the websites
www.irshod.com
and
www.irshod.net
which are considered to be mouthpiece for Jamaat Ansarullah. However, the website
www.irshod.com
still remains available to visitors in Tajikistan.
Since 2000, Tajik authorities have banned more than 10 Islamic groups and organizations, including Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Jamaat Tablig, and Hizb ut-Tahrir.
