DUSHANBE, January 9, 2013, Asia-Plus — Tajik chief prosecutor Sherkhon Salimzoda considers that a special operation that was carried out in Khorog, the capital of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) last summer has served as a lesson to all criminal groups across the country.
He remarked this at a news conference in Dushanbe on January 9.
According to Salimzoda, criminal groupings that were active in Khorog committed many serious and especially serious crimes. “Some 20 serious crimes were committed by members of those criminal groupings,” Tajik chief prosecutor noted.
He added that due to explanatory work carried out by representatives of appropriate structures residents of Khorog and the Shugnan district handed over 325 weapons and a large amount of ammunition to local law enforcement agency over the past five months. A totaled included 118 Makarov pistols, 105 assailant rifles Kalashnikov, twelve machine-guns Kalashnikov, one mortar, ten grenade launchers, 162 shells and landmines, 190 hand grenades, and some 22,000 bullets of different calibers.
We will recall that the Prosecutor-General’s Office has stopped persecution of fighters, engaged in clashes with government forces in Khorog in July last year, who voluntarily laid down their weapons from July 25 to December 20. Criminal proceedings have been instituted under the provisions of Article 195 of Tajikistan’s Penal Code – illegally bearing, possessing and acquiring weapons. A statement released by the Prosecutor-General’s Office notes that an appropriate decision was made on December 21.
The clashes began in Khorog on July 24, 2012 when government forces launched a military operation against what it called “militants” following the murder of the regional security chief Abdullo Nazarov on July 21, 2012.
The authorities have blamed Tolib Ayombekov, a former warlord from the civil war who had been deputy chief of border unit in the Ishkashim district until recently, for the murder of Abdullo Nazarov and hundreds of troops have reportedly poured into Khorog to hunt down Ayombekov.
Authorities also accused Ayombekov of drug-trading and smuggling tobacco and precious stones.
Tolib Ayombekov has denied the accusations and said the government is using Nazarov”s death as a pretext for cementing its grip over Gorno Badakhshan. Tolib Ayombekov surrendered to the authorities on August 12.
Another former filed commander of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) in Gorno Badakhshan, Imomnazar Imomnazarov, was murdered by unknown assailants in his home in Khorog on August 22.
