The chief of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption, Sulaimon Sultonzoda, has denied allegations that the arrest of anticorruption officers has been the result of feud between the country’s power-wielding structures as absolutely ‘baseless’.
“There ought not to attribute the arrest of a group of anticorruption officers by the State Committee for National Security (SCNS) to mythical feuds between the power-wielding structures of the country,” the anticorruption agency chief Sulaimon Sultonzoda told reporters in Dushanbe on July 28.
Recall, some media outlets reported in May that the anti-corruption sweep is the handiwork of the SCNS, making this all look like a classic case of clan infighting.
Meanwhile, the trial of a group of anti-corruption agency officials arrested earlier this year is under way. It is being held behind closed doors.
Speaking at a news conference in Dushanbe, the head of the Supreme Court, Shermuhammad Shohiyon said on July 17 that thirteen people are under investigation. Ten of them are former employees of the anticorruption agency, while three others belong to other bodies, he said.
Among those named by Shohiyon were the former deputy head of the anticorruption agency Davlatbek Khairzoda and the head of the investigative directorate, Firouz Kholmurodzoda.
As it had been reported earlier, more than 10 top investigators and officials of the anticorruption agency were arrested on April 24
Thus, a former deputy chief of the anticorruption agency, Davlatbek Khairzoda, was reportedly detained at the airport of the northern city of Khujand as he was on his way to Russia.
Among the detained officers there were also Jamoliddin Muhammadzoda, the head of the inspections department, and Firouz Kholmurodzoda, the chief of the investigative directorate. Firdavs Niyozbadalov was reportedly also arrested. He was involved in the investigation into the former minister of industry Zayd Saidov. Saidov’s lawyers and human rights activists had complained that Niyozbadalov used unlawful methods and resorted to physical intimidation during that investigation.
In his written reply to Asia-Plus inquiry letter, the anticorruption agency chief Sulaimon Sultonzoda noted on May 24 that a special investigative group had been set up to investigate the case of the arrested anticorruption officers.
“Reports released by some media outlets that allegedly 35 million dollars were found in the home of Davlatbek Kharizoda’s parents, 1.3 million dollars and six kilograms of gold were found in Firouz Kholmurdozoda’s home and sacks of dollars and jewelries were discovered in the home of Firdavs Niyozbadalov (Abdughafforzoda) are absolutely baseless,” Sultonzoda said in his letter.
He also denied information that the medical certificate of the Moscow-based “Bio-Papa” lab regarding Zayd Saidov’s criminal case is falsified as unfounded.
Recall, the Prague-based website akhbor.com posted photos claiming to show a humungous trove of dollars being discovered in the family home of the one of the suspects, Khairzoda. As the website explained, the pictures have been widely circulated by mobile phone users in Tajikistan, as though that somehow constituted evidence of anything.
Meanwhile, EurasiaNet.org reports that the photos, however, turned out not to be from Tajikistan at all, but of some other unspecified nation — possibly Ecuador.
Tajikistan ranked joint 136th out 165 countries in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index — the same as Nigeria and 17 position below Russia.
Tajikistan signed up to the United Nations Convention against Corruption in 2006 and an anticorruption strategy for 2013-2020 was adopted in 2012.
