The State Committee for National Security has instituted criminal proceedings to investigate into an explosion that took place outside the building of Supreme Court in Dushanbe late Saturday.
DUSHANBE, June 18, Asia-Plus – The State Committee for National Security has instituted criminal proceedings to investigate into an explosion that occurred outside the building of the Supreme Court in Dushanbe Saturday evening, Dushanbe Prosecutor Qurbonali Muhabbatov said in an interview with Asia-Plus. The criminal proceedings have been instituted under Article 179 of Tajikistan’s Criminal Code – terrorism.
The Dushanbe chief prosecutor characterized the blast as terrorist attack, noting that it was aimed at intimidation. He added that it is not clear yet whether the explosion was aimed to intimidate the population or specifically employees of the Supreme Court.
“However, the blast was not designed to cause casualties,” said the prosecutor, “The blast occurred at 5:25 p.m., when nobody was inside the court building; it was aimed at intimidation.” No hearings were at the Supreme Court on Saturday, according to him.
At the same time, Muhabbatov has ruled out that the blast was politically motivated and detonated in connection with upcoming celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of the General Peace Agreement, which are marked on June 27. He said that a number of blasts were occurred several years ago outside the ministry of interior (MoI), prosecutor-general’s Office and Dushanbe’s Sino district prosecutor’s office for the purpose of intimidation.
“At present experts are working to determine a type of explosive,” the capital chief prosecutor said, adding that according to the preliminary investigation, a power of Saturday’s blast was equivalent to 400 grams of T.N.T.
As it had been reported earlier, the blast occurred outside the building of the Supreme Court Saturday evening, at around 05:25 p.m. The blast was sufficiently powerful that it blew out the windows and damaged a fence at the court building. No one was hurt in the blast.
The Dushanbe prosecutor Qurbonali Muhabbatov who came to the scene of incident told journalists that explosion might be a terrorist act designed to “intimidate the population.”
We will recall that exactly one year ago, on June 16, 2006, three small explosions occurred in different places of Dushanbe. The law enforcement agencies suggested that time that the explosions were linked and could be work of teenagers.
In 2006, Tajik authorities blamed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) for two explosions that occurred outside the Ministry of Emergency Situations in January and June 2006.
