KHUJAND, February 17, 2015, Asia-Plus — Thirteen members of the outlawed religious extremist group Jamaat Ansarullah have got log jail terms.
A court in Khujand, the capital of the northern province of Sughd sentenced 13 members of Jamaat Ansarullah, aged 26 to 42, to between nine and twelve years in prison on February 16.
The sentence reportedly followed their conviction on charges of organizing a criminal group or participating in a criminal group (Article 187 (2) of Tajikistan’s Penal Code), organizing an extremist group or participating in an extremist group (Article 307 (2) and organizing an activity of an extremist group and participating in political parties and religious organizations that are banned in Tajikistan because of their extremist activity (Article 307 (3).
Two of them were sentenced to twelve years in jail each and eleven others were sentenced to between nine and ten years in prison. All of them will serve their terms in a high-security penal colony.
We will recall that twelve residents of Konibodom and one resident of Istaravshan were detained in November last year on suspicion of membership in Jamaat Ansarullah. Tajik law enforcement authorities noted that they were suspected of recruiting residents of Sughd province to fight alongside antigovernment forces in Syria. Two guns and ammunition were reportedly found at the house of the suspected ringleader, Najmiddin Shamsiyev, who is resident of Istaravshan.
The trial began on February 3 and was held behind closed doors in Khujand’s pretrial detention facility # 2.
Jamaat Ansarullah, also known as the Society of Allah’s Soldiers, first came to light in September 2010 when the heretofore unknown organization claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on September 3 in Khujand. An explosives-packed car rammed into the building of the Sughd regional organized crime control department, killing two officers and two civilians and wounding 28 people. The suicide bomber was local resident Akmal Karimov, who was reportedly trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In September 2011, Jamaat Ansarullah issued several videos calling on Tajikistan’s citizens to embrace jihad against “infidels” and urging them to take action to support the implementation of Islamic Sharia law. “Those who pray namaz, who follow fasting rules but support democracy are nonbelievers,” a man on the video said. “Allah is killing nonbelievers by our hands and, thus, blesses us.” Some politicians and experts, however, doubt whether these videos can really be traced back to Jamaat Ansarullah.
In May 2012, Tajikistan’s Supreme Court officially banned Jamaat Ansarullah as extremist on the basis of a suit filed by the Prosecutor-General’s Office.
The deputy head of the State Committee for National Security (SCNS), Mansur Umarov, told parliament on February 4 that Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) had transferred one of the leaders of Jamaat Ansarullah, Tajik national Qamariddin Ahrorov, to Tajik authorities.
