DUSHANBE, June 14, 2016, Asia-Plus – The Supreme Court of Tajikistan has sentenced two associates of the former deputy defense minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda (Hoji Halim) to life imprisonment while several others have received lengthy jail terms, according to
Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service
.
The trail was held behind closed doors.
Relatives of the convicts told
RFE/RL’s Tajik Service
that the court had delivered life sentences to Sadriddin Nematov and Siroj Odinayev.
Several other associates of Nazarzoda received lengthy jail terms. Thus, Amrullo Nourov was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
The trial concluded last week.
Tojnews
agency reports that in all, nine associates of Abduhalim Nazarzoda were convicted last week.
We will recall that former deputy defense minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda and a group of gunmen under his control launched a predawn attack on the main police station in the Vahdat Township east of the Tajik capital on September 4, 2015 and clashed later that day with security forces at a Defense Ministry building not far from the Dushanbe International Airport. Nine police officers were killed and six others were wounded in those attacks.
Nazarzoda, his associate Colonel Junaidulloh Umarov, and several other gunmen then fled to the Romit Gorge, adjacent to Vahdat, where security forces were targeting them in a large-scale manhunt.
Abduhalim Nazarzoda was killed along with 10 of his supporters during a battle in Romit on September 16. His associate Colonel Junaidulloh Umarov was also killed.
In all, 25 members of Hoji Halim’s group were killed and 125 others arrested during the operation in Romit.
Abduhalim Nazarzoda, 51, had served as deputy defense minister since January 2014. He joined the security forces in June 1997 when the government and the opposition signed a peace accord to end the five-year civil war.
