DUSHANBE, October 23, 2013, Asia-Plus — Tajik known businessman Zayd Saidov has reportedly refused to attend his trial in protest against unfair consideration of his case.
One of Saidov’s defense lawyers, Shuhrat Qudratov, says Zayd Saidov refused to attend his trial after the court on October 22 refused an application by his defense lawyers for repeated DNA paternity test for the child, whose mother has accused their client of raping her.
“Initial DNA test was conducted in violation of Tajikistan’s Criminal Procedure Code; they did not take materials from our client for conducting the DNA test,” said Qudratov. “On October 22, the court refused our application for conducting repeated DNA test. The court justified its refusal by saying that there is a conclusion of the DNA test in the case materials.”
We will recall that Zayd Saidov on August 13 was confronted with underage girl who accused him of raping her. Saidov reportedly said that he has never seen her. The girl, however, recognized Zayd Saidov and continued accusing him of raping her.
We will recall that Zayd Saidov went on trial in Dushanbe on September 12. The trail is being held in the pretrial detention facility of the State Committee for national Security (SCNS) behind closed doors.
Zayd Saidov, who is the leader of Tajikistan”s unregistered New Tajikistan party, was arrested on May 19 and charged with bribe-taking (Article 319 of Tajikistan’s Penal Code), abuse of office (Article 314), financial fraud (Article 247), extortion (Article 250), polygamy (Article 170), rape (Article 138) and sexual relations with a minor (Article 125).
