DUSHANBE, August 9, 2014, Asia-Plus — The Prosecutor-General’s Office of Kyrgyzstan has not received any official request from Tajik authorities to detain and extradite a former Tajik regional lawmaker and businessman Nizomkhon Jourayev, representative of the Kyrgyz chief prosecutor’s office told Asia-Plus in an interview.
Ms. Gulmira Borubayeva, a spokesperson for Kyrgyzstan’s border service, says they have also not received any official letter regarding Nizomkhon Jourayev from Tajik authorities.
We will recall that Kyrgyzstan’s Interior Ministry said on August 4 that it has also not received any official request from Tajik authorities to detain Nizomkhon Jourayev.
In a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, Director Таджикский предприниматель, Director of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption, Abdufattoh Ghoib, noted on July 30 that a former regional lawmaker and businessman from the northern province of Sughd, Nizomkhon Jourayev, is fleeing from justice in neighboring Kyrgyzstan.
According to him, they have made an official request to Kyrgyz authorities but have not yet received response from them.
Tajik authorities have added Nizomkhon Jourayev to their most-wanted list after he failed to show up for his trial on murder and embezzlement charges. Officials at the Supreme Court of Tajikistan noted on June 23 that Nizomkhon Jourayev was subpoenaed on June 16 but did not appear for his trial on June 18.
Nizomkhon Jourayev was a successful businessman who owned the chemical plant in the northern city of Isfara. 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.
Moscow police detained Nizomkhon Jourayev on August 27, 2010 on Tajik warrant and earlier 2012 he resurfaced in Tajikistan under unexplained circumstances and told state media that he had come back to face justice at home.
Nizomkhon Jourayev was shown on Tajik national TV channel, Jahonnamo on April 8, 2012. He said that he returned to Tajikistan voluntarily.
Jourayev then testified as a key witness in several high-profile trials against an opposition politician, former Supreme Court judges, and other officials. Jourayev had been asked not to leave Dushanbe before his trial.
