DUSHANBE, February 20, 2015, Asia-Plus — The Dushanbe city court has upheld the verdict passed by a court in Dushanbe’s Ismoili Somoni district against Jamoliddin Mahmoudov, an election official from the Islamic Revival Party (IRP).
Buzurgmehr Yorov, a lawyer representing Jamoliddin Mahmoudov, denounced the ruling and said they would appeal to a higher court.
We will recall that Jamoliddin Mahmoudov has been detained on suspicion of illegal possession of weapons.
The State Committee for National Security (SCNS) said on February 11 that Jamoliddin Mahmoudov was detained in Dushanbe.
In a statement, the SCNS said police found two Makarov pistols, 51 bullets and a grenade fuse in the home of Latif Sardorov, resident of the village of Chuquraki Bolo in the Hisor district.
Sardorov reportedly said that the pistols and ammunition belong to Jamoliddin Mahmoudov, who gave them to him in 1996 and asked Sardorov to keep them for him.
On January 12, IRP leader Muhiddin Kabiri confirmed that one of pistols, found in Sardorov’s house, belongs to Jamoliddin Mahmoudov. According to him, the pistol was given to Mahmoudov during the civil war, when Mahmoudov co-chaired the ceasefire sub-commission from the United Tajik Opposition (UTO).
“In 1996, Mahmoudov gave the pistol to his fellow villager Latif Sardorov for destruction but he buried the pistol in the yard of his house. In late 2013, following quarrel within her husband, Sardorov’s daughter-in-law notified the police of the weapons buried in the yard,” said Kabiri. “When police officer came, Latif Sardorov admitted that he had buried weapons in the yard. The SCNS officers, however, asked police officers to leave the weapons in the hide.”
IRP leader added that he knows nothing about the second pistol discovered from the hide.
Mahmoudov’s defense lawyer, Buzurgmehr Yorov, says his client has admitted his guilt partially. “Mahmoudov says the pistol was given to him in 1996 for protective measures and his guilt is that he had not registered the pistol with appropriate bodies in time and then he had forgotten all about it,” Yorov said.
A court in Dushanbe’s Ismoili Somoni district ruled on February 13 that the IRP) activist Jamoliddin Mahmoudov, who is member of the Central Commission for Elections and Referenda (CCER) from the IRP, can be held in detention for two months.
Mahmoudov is currently being held in the SCNS-run pretrial detention facility and criminal proceedings have been instituted under the provisions of Article 195 (2) of Tajikistan’s Penal Code – illegally bearing, possessing, and acquiring weapons; an investigation is under way.
