DUSHANBE, September 2, 2010, Asia-Plus — One of alleged masterminds of an August 23 prison break has reportedly been detained.
A reliable source at one of law enforcement agencies of Tajikistan told Asia-Plus today that a special operation carried out by officers from the Ministry of Interior (MoI) led to the arrest of one of masterminds of the August 23 prison break, Ibrohim Nasriddinov, in Vahdat district, some 20 kilometers east of Dushanbe, today morning. “They are currently considering the issue of transportation of Nasriddinov to Dushanbe,” the source, refraining from giving further details.
According to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Nasriddinov is one of the prison break masterminds. Ms. Parvina Alizoda, a spokeswoman for the MoJ penitentiary division, noted on August 31 that one of questions to the State Committee for National Security (GKNB) pertains to prisoner Ibrohim Nasriddinov, who had access to cell keys and did not sleep with the other inmates.
We will recall that Ibrohim Nasriddinov, who is also known as Qori Ibrohim, was extradited to Tajikistan from U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay in March 2007. In March 2007, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison on murder and weapons charges. Nasriddinov was accused of supporting Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and receiving terrorist training in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Nasriddinov was serving his sentence in a high-security penal colony in Qurghon Teppa, while GKNB last year asked to transfer him to its pretrial detention facility in Dushanbe.
As it had been reported earlier, 25 convicts serving long jail terms escaped from the GKNB-run pretrial detention facility in Dushanbe in the early hours of morning of August 23, killing five prison guards. Dressing in camouflage, the escapees reportedly fled toward the Rasht Valley in eastern Tajikistan. The majority of the fugitives were among 46 people convicted by the Supreme Court on August 19 week of terrorism, drug trafficking, and seeking the forcible overthrow of the government. The prisoners reportedly took advantage of the negligence of the jail warden.
