DUSHANBE, August 4, 2016, Asia-Plus – Last year’s mutiny of former deputy defense minister Abdhalim Nazarzoda, also known as Hoji Halim, has all signs of a coup d”état, Tajik chief prosecutor Yusuf Rahmon announced at a news conference in Dushanbe on August 4.
According to him, guilt of Hoji Halim’s supporters and leaders of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) has been fully proven.
“Criminal proceedings over the failed coup attempt have been instituted against nearly 200 people and 170 of them have already been convicted,” said Tajik chief prosecutor. “Besides, 25 members of the Islamic Revival Party have been convicted.”
Tajik prosecutor-general stated that IRPT leader Muhiddin Kabiri was one of masterminds of the failed coup attempt. “Kabiri has been put on the international wanted list and he will appear before the Tajik court sooner or later,” Rahmon said.
He further added that Tajik law enforcement authorities had also instituted criminal proceedings against fugitive ex-commander of Tajik special police unit Gulmurod Halimov and his second wife Humairo Mirova.
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.
Tajik officials say 30 members of the group, including Nazarzoda and Umarov, have been killed and more than 100 others arrested during the operation and that weapons and vehicles have been seized from the group.
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.
Tajik authorities blamed the IRPT for organizing the mutiny, while the Supreme Court banned the party, designating it an “extremist and terrorist organization.”
IRPT leader Muhiddin Kabiri, who now lives in exile, has rejected the accusations.
