DUSHANBE, July 12, 2011, Asia-Plus — Tajik Prosecutor-General Sherkhon Salimzoda told a news conference on July 12 that Tajik Prosecutor-General’s Office is currently conducting negotiations with the authorities of Russia, Kazakhstan, China and a number of other countries on extraditing criminals and transferring convicts to homeland to finish serving their prison terms.
“Since January 2010, the Russian authorities have extradited 60 suspects to Tajikistan and transferred 22 convicted Tajik nationals to Tajikistan to finish serving their jail terms,” Salimzoda, said noting that the majority of Tajik nationals serving their jail terms in Russia were convicted of drug trafficking charges.
According to him, over the first six months of this year alone, they have received applications from more than 100 persons with solicitation to transfer their relatives serving their jail terms in Russia to prisons in Tajikistan. “We ask the Russian authorities to transfer convicts who were detained with up to one kilogram of narcotics,” Tajik chief prosecutor noted.
He added that they were continuing negotiations with the Russian authorities on extradition of Tajik tycoon Nizomkhon Jourayev to Tajikistan.
“The Moscow city court in April this year permitted extradition of Nizomkhon Jourayev to Tajikistan to face charges of organization of illegal armed formation and other serious crimes and Russia’s Supreme Court on June 2 upheld the Moscow city court’s ruling to extradite Jourayev to Tajikistan,” said Salimzoda, “In the meantime, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg Human Rights in Strasbourg sent a notice to Russian authorities to suspend a decision to deport Jourayev.”
Tajik chief prosecutor, however, expressed confidence that the issue will be resolved in the near future and Jourayev will be extradited to Tajikistan.
We will recall that Moscow police detained Nizomkhon Jourayev in August 2010 upon an extradition request from the authorities in Tajikistan and in February 2011, the Russian Prosecutor-General decided that he could be extradited. Nizomkhon Jourayev has applied for asylum in Russia. His first appeal was turned down and he appealed against this decision.
Nizomkhon Jourayev has been wanted by Tajik police since 2007. Jourayev, the former owner of a chemical plant and a distillery in Isfara, Sughd province, was also a member of the Sughd legislature. In 2007 investigations were launched into his financial activities, and later in 2008 he was officially accused of ordering assassination of former Deputy Prosecutor-General Tolib Boboyev in 1999.
Criminal proceedings have been instituted against Nizomkhon Jourayev under the provisions of eight articles of Tajikistan’s Penal Code: Article 104 – murder; Article 185 – organization of illegal armed formation; Article 186 – banditry; Article 195 – illegal storage of weapons; Article 245 – embezzlement or misappropriation; Article 262 – money laundering; Article 292 – tax evasion; and Article 340 – document forgery. Nizomkhon Jourayev left the country before his arrest warrant was issued.
On June 9, 2009, the Supreme Court of Tajikistan sentenced 31 associates of Nizomkhon Jourayev to long jail terms. They were sentenced to prison terms between 11 and 25 years, while a prosecutor in the trial of them asked for shorter terms for them.
According to Tajik law enforcement authorities, Nizomkhon Jourayev and his two brothers, Fakhriddin and Tolib, were involved in organizing the assassination of former Deputy Prosecutor-General Tolib Boboyev in 1999.
Jourayev and his associates were also charged with setting up an organized criminal group, tax evasion, and a number of financial crimes.
