DUSHANBE, January 7, 2015, Asia-Plus — A prosecutor in the trial of Shuhrat Qudratov, who was one of defense lawyers for the jailed Tajik tycoon Zayd Saidov, asked the Dushanbe city court to sentence Shuhrat Qudratov to an 11-year prison term with serving his term in a high-security penal colony. A verdict is expected at the end of this week or next week.
We will recall that Shuhrat Qudratov was arrested on July 21, 2014.
An official statement released by the Tajik anticorruption agency on July 22, 2014 stated that lawyer Shuhrat Qudratov was arrested on July 21 when allegedly taking a bribe from his client Amirali Sulamayev, who is accused of fraud. According to the statement, Mr. Qudratov intended to pass on this bribe to one of the judges of a court in Dushanbe’s Ismoili Somoni district “in order to ensure an acquittal verdict of the court.”
On these grounds, criminal proceedings were instituted against Mr. Qudratov under three articles of Tajikistan’s Penal Code: Article 36 – complicity in crime; Article 32 – preparation for crime and an attempt to commit a crime; Article 320 – bribery.
The case moved to the Dushanbe city court on November 20, 2014.
Shuhrat Qudratov is the deputy head of the Social-Democratic Party and SDP leader Rahmatillo Zoyirov is representing Qudratov during his bribery trial.
