DUSHANBE, January 13, 2014, Asia-Plus /Mavzouna Abdulloyeva/ — The Dushanbe city court sentenced Shuhrat Qudratov, who was one of defense lawyers for the jailed Tajik tycoon Zayd Saidov, to nine years in prison on January 13.
The sentence followed his conviction of charges of bribery and fraud. Shuhrat Qudratov will serve his term in a high-security penal colony and he is barred from practicing law during two years after a release.
The court’s ruling was nearly identical to the prosecutor’s earlier demand for an 11-year prison term.
We will recall that a prosecutor in the trial of Shuhrat Qudratov, Samandar Abdullozoda, on January 7 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.
As it had been reported earlier, 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 represented Qudratov during his bribery trial.
Qudratov is the second defense lawyer for Zayd Saidov to be detained by Tajik authorities. In March last year, Saidov’s defense lawyer Fakhriddin Zokirov was arrested for his alleged debts to a local bank. Zokirov was reportedly amnestied on November 3, 2014.
Tajik civil society organizations, representatives of bar associations, as well as the members of NGO Coalition against Torture in Tajikistan have called on the Tajikistani authorities to: impartially and objectively investigate the cases of Shuhrat Qudratov and Fakhriddin Zokirov, without associating the cases against them with their professional activities, particularly their work on cases of a political character; abide by national and international norms recognized by Tajikistan and abandon the practice of persecuting lawyers and putting them under pressure for their professional activities; refrain from direct or indirect interference in the work of lawyers, as well as from any form of repression against them; and in cases when lawyers are detained, ensure that the relevant Bar Association and the public are immediately informed about the reasons for these detentions and that the lawyers concerned are granted immediate access to a lawyer, in addition to complying with other obligations of the state set out by law.
