DUSHANBE, August 5, 2016, Asia-Plus – Former deputy defense minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda (also known as Hoji Halim), who was killed in a special operation by security forces in September 2015, reportedly owed 350,000 U.S. dollars to two Tajik banks.
In a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, Dilmurod Davlatzoda, the head of the Accounts Chamber of Tajikistan, revealed on August 5 that according to findings of inspections carried out by the Accounts Chamber, Abduhalim Nazarzoda owed 150,000 U.S. dollars to Amonatbonk (Tajikistan’s savings bank) and 200,000 U.S. dollars to Tojik Sodirot Bonk (TSB).
The inspection findings have been submitted for consideration to the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office, Davlatzoda added.
Meanwhile, Tajik chief prosecutor Yusuf Rahmon told reporters on August 4 that criminal proceedings have been instituted against nearly 200 people over the last year’s failed coup and 170 of them have already been convicted.
According to him, those 170 people had been sentenced to prison terms of between one and 30 years on a number of charges, including murder and membership in a criminal group.
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 is currently in self-imposed exile abroad, denies any involvement of his party in the attempted coup.
