DUSHANBE, March 31, 2011, Asia-Plus — A trial of eleven fugitives from an August 2010 mass jailbreak and several their accomplices began in the Supreme Court on March 30.
The source at the Supreme Court says the Supreme Court’s military board is considering criminal proceedings instituted against them.
According to him, proceedings started with the reading of the indictment, which charges the culprits with jailbreak, murder, illegal possession of weapons, banditry and armed resistance.
We will recall that 25 convicts serving long jail terms escaped from the detention facility of the State Committee for national Security (SCNS) in Dushanbe in the early hours of morning of August 23 2010, killing five prison guards. Dressing in camouflage, the escapees reportedly fled toward eastern Tajikistan. The majority of the fugitives were among 46 people convicted by the Supreme Court on August 19, 2010 of terrorism, drug trafficking, and seeking the forcible overthrow of the government. The escaped prisoners include six Russian citizens, four Afghans, and two Uzbeks. Most were accused of participating in the 2009 armed rebellion in Tavildara.
Thee fugitives have been killed when resisting arrest and fourteen more have been recaptured, mostly in the Dushanbe suburbs, eastern Tajikistan and in Afghanistan. The remaining eight are still at large.
As it had been reported earlier, five fugitives, including three Afghan nationals, were arrested in northern Afghanistan on December 19, 2010. Two of them – Hikmat Azizov, nicknamed “Kuri Malysh (a mixed expression of Tajik and Russia meaning ‘blind kid’) and Bahromjon Orifov – were extradited from Afghanistan on December 25, 2010. As far three Afghan nationals who were also escapees from the jailbreak are concerned, Afghanistan wanted to put them on trial.
