DUSHANBE, May 13, 2015, Asia-Plus – Russian President Vladimir Putin has pardoned two employees of Tajik uranium-processing plant, Vostokredmet, Russian media outlets report.
Putin reportedly signed a decree on granting pardon to two employees of Tajik enterprise Vostokredmet – Alexander Boboshin and Alexander Botov, who were sentenced by a Tajik court to long jail terms for high treason in 2009.
The decree will take effect in ten days, TASS reported on May 12.
We will recall that a court in the city of Chkalovsk, Sughd province sentenced Shavkat Bobojonov, director of Vostokredmet; Matin Ziyoyev, Vostokredmet’s internal security chief; Alexander Botov, the facility’s engineer-in-chief; Alexander Boboshin, the facility’s capital construction department; and Uzbek national Vissarion Ten to long jail terms on October 21, 2009.
Shavkat Bobojonov and Matin Ziyoyev were sentenced to 10 years in prison each for abuse of power.
Botov and Boboshin were sentenced to 22 years each. The sentence followed their conviction on the charges of high treason and abuse of power.
The Uzbek national Vissarion Ten reportedly got a jail term of 20 years for spying for another state.
Botov, Ziyoyev and Boboshin were detained in May 2009 on suspicion of spying for Uzbekistan. The Vostokredment head Shavkat Bobojonov was arrested on July 22.
The Vostokredmet uranium-reprocessing plant, located in the northern city of Chkalovsk, near Khujand, is included on the list of strategic facilities of Tajikistan. It had produced yellowcake for the Soviet nuclear and defense industries but it lost that capability when Moscow transferred all sensitive equipment at the plant to Russia before the breakup of the Soviet Union.
