DUSHANBE, March 9, 2013, Asia-Plus — The independent Dushanbe newspaper,
Imrouz News
(News Today), on March 7 appealed against the ruling handed down by a court in Dushanbe’s Ismoili Somoni district over a lawsuit filed against it by Rustam Hukumov, son of the head of Tajik Railways (Tajik state rail company) Amonullo Hukumov.
“In the appeal lodged to the higher court, we ask to reverse the ruling handed down the Ismoili Somoni court and review the case,” the
Imrouz News
editor-in-chief Nazir Nusrat told Asia-Plus in an interview.
“We, in particular, noted that the lawsuit lodged against the newspaper was drawn up wrong and the ruling handed down by judge was biased,” Nusrat noted.
According to him, the judge noted that the newspaper had allegedly failed to provide authentic facts in its article. Meanwhile, Nusrat said that other media sources such as the BBC, Ozodi (Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service), as well as Russian media outlets RIA Novosti, RBC and Izvestiya had also published articles on that subject. And all of them published materials after the release and acquittal of Rustam Hukumov.
“Besides, the court’s decision does not specify what kind of moral damage was caused to Rustam Hukumov,” Nusrat added.
We will recall the Ismoili Somoni District court on February 25 ordered
Imrouz News
to pay 50,000 somoni (US$10,500) in damages in a libel case filed by Rustam Hukumov. The court also ordered the newspaper to publicly apologize to the plaintiff.
Rustam Hukumov filed the lawsuit against
Imrouz News
on January 29, asking for 50,000 somoni as compensation of moral damage that was allegedly caused by an article published by the newspaper.
The case stems from an article “Hukumov and Bakiyev Become Headache for Their Fathers” that was published in the newspaper last October. The article was about detention of the sons of Amonullo Hukumov and ex-Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev by law enforcement authorities of other countries. The article questioned the reasons behind the plaintiff”s release from a Russian jail a year earlier. The newspaper also alleged that Rustam Hukumov”s case resulted in diplomatic tensions between Russia and Tajikistan.
Russian authorities arrested Rustam Hukumov in June 2008 on charges of drug trafficking and sentenced him to nine and a half years in jail in September 2010. However a year later, in December 2011, Hukumov was acquitted on appeal and released. According to some Russian media outlets, Russian authorities freed Hukumov from jail in exchange for two Russian pilots being released from a Tajik prison. The pilots were jailed in March 2011 on accusations of smuggling airplane parts.
