Kurgon-Teppa’s finance department urged Tajik Ministry of Finance to hand the planes, seized from the Rolkan Investment Ltd as a result of consideration of a criminal case against the company’s pilots, over to the Kurgan-Teppa Finance Department or to the State Investments and State Property Management Committee.
Two confiscated AN-72 airplanes remain in Kurgon-Teppa airport for more than a one-year period. Russian pilot Vladimir Sadovnichiy and his Estonian colleague Alexey Rudenko landed in Kurgon-Teppa in March last year.
On November 8 Kurgon-Teppa court has found the two Rolkan Investment Ltd’s pilots guilty of trafficking of spare parts for airplanes and violation of international air transportation rules and illegal border crossing sentencing each to 10.5 years in prison. Taking into account the Law “On amnesty” their sentences were reduced down to 8.5 years.
The two AN-72s and one engine were confiscated.
Two weeks later the Khatlon court reduced pilots’ terms of imprisonment down to two and a half years and the pilots were released on the basis of the amnesty law. However, airplanes still remain in the Kurgon-Teppa airport and their future remains unclear.
The Kurgon-Teppa Department of Finance hopes that the Ministry will finally settle the issue. “City administration do not need these airplanes since we can’t use them or sell or transfer to some other company. That’s why we wrote an official request to the Ministry of Finance to settle the issue, but still waiting for the reply,” the Kurgon-Teppa Department of Finance told the AP.
Earlier the Rolkan Investment Ltd urged Tajikistan to return the airplanes. In his request to the Khatlon court head of the company Sergei Poluyanov called the court’s decision to seize the airplanes illegal since they are the property of the company and in accordance with the international legal standards the court is not authorized to seize airplanes if the owner is not guilty.
However, the court refused the Rolkan’s request due to a series of mistakes found in the request’s text. The Khalon court has also refused the pilots appeal on their full acquittal.
