DUSHANBE, April 23, 2015, Asia-Plus – Al Bawaba, a news, blogging and media website headquartered in Amman, Jordan with an office in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), reports that founder of the Tajik opposition organization Group 24, Umarali Quvvatov, has been poisoned with clozapine, the drug which normally used to treat schizophrenia.
According to Al Bawaba, a forensic report said on Wednesday (April 22) that the drug clozapine was traced in Quvvatov’s blood.
The report released by the Istanbul-based Council of Forensic Medicine was reportedly also sent to Istanbul’s prosecutor’s office.
Although the dose was not determined to be lethal, forensic experts believe the drug, which is normally used to treat schizophrenia, had been given to Quvvatov with the aim of poisoning him, Al Bawaba reports.
Clozapine is an atypical antipsychotic medication used in the treatment of schizophrenia, and is also sometimes used off-label for the treatment of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.
We will recall the Group founding leader Umarali Quvvatov was shot dead on a street in Istanbul, Turkey on March 5.
Quvvatov”s wife, Qumriniso Hafizova, told reporters on March 8 that on March 5, she, Quvvatov, and their two sons had been invited for dinner at the house of Sulaimon Qayumov, a 30-year-old Tajik citizen who has been residing in Istanbul for several months.
Hafizova said that she, Quvvatov, and their sons felt sick after consuming food offered by Qayumov and rushed out for fresh air. An ambulance eventually arrived at around 10:30 p.m.
When they were outside, Hafizova said, an unidentified man approached Quvvatov from behind and fired a single shot to his head before fleeing. Umarali Quvvatov died at the scene.
Hafizova and her two sons were hospitalized and diagnosed with poisoning.
Quvvatov, a businessman, who once had close ties with President Emomali Rahmon’s relatives, had been living abroad since 2012, when he left the country first for Russia and then for the United Arab Emirates. Tajikistan requested his extradition from the UAE in 2012 on suspicion of committing fraud, and he was detained in Dubai and spent 10 months in prison in 2013, but was not extradited to Tajikistan.
After that Quvvatov moved to Turkey where he was jailed in December for violating visa rules. He was released on February 4 and killed a month later.
In 2012 Umarali Quvvatov set up the Group 24 opposition movement, which the Supreme Court of Tajikistan labeled as “extremist” and banned its activities in the country in October last year. The movement called for large-scale protests against the Tajik authorities on social media. Quvvatov was also accused of fraud and misappropriation of property.
