DUSHANBE, August 8, 2015, Asia-Plus – Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, whose reporter attended the trial of two Russian soldiers suspected in the killing of a Tajik taxi driver, reports that one of the soldiers admitted to killing the tax driver.
According to RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, Ildar Sakhapov pleaded guilty. The judge reportedly said that the murder had been planned by Sakhapov and Fydor Basimov had just helped Sakhapov commit the crime.
RFE/RL’s Tajik Service notes that a Russian colonel confiscated part of RFE/RL”s video of the hearing, at which the judge said one of the men had pleaded guilty.
The 109th garrison court at the Russian military base in Tajikistan reportedly started the hearings into the case on August 4.
Russian army”s deputy platoon commander Fyodor Basimov and former military unit commander Ildar Sakhapov were arrested in August last year after taxi driver Rahimjon Teshaboyev, 36, was found dead near Dushanbe.
An autopsy revealed that Teshaboyev, a father of three, was severely beaten before his throat was slashed.
The incident reportedly increased tension between local Tajiks and Russian military personnel.
We will recall that an official source at the Ministry of Defense of Tajikistan told Asia-Plus on July 31 that according to agreements reached between the two countries, servicemen of the Russian military base deployed in Tajikistan committing crime in Tajikistan fall under the jurisdiction of Tajikistan’s legislation and criminal proceedings are instituted against them by relevant Tajik bodies.
“On completion of investigation the criminal case is handed over to the relevant bodies of the Russian side and they must to inform the Tajik side of the decision they made,” the source said.
The Russian military base deployed in Tajikistan is Russia”s largest non-naval military facility outside the country. It was officially opened in Tajikistan in 2004 under a previous agreement, which was signed in 1993, and hosts Russia’s largest military contingent deployed abroad.
A total of some 7,000 Russian troops are stationed at three military facilities collectively known as the 201st military base – in Dushanbe, Qurghon Teppa, some 100 kilometers from Dushanbe, and Kulob, about 200 kilometers southwest of Dushanbe.
Under an agreement signed in October 2012, Russian troops are allowed to remain stationed in Tajikistan until 2042.
