Dushanbe resident has got a lengthy jail term for not reporting the former deputy defense minister mutiny. According to the Tajik chief prosecutor’s office, he knew about the mutiny one month before it but did not report the mutiny.
A court in Dushanbe’s Sino district has sentenced Ergash Rizoyev to eight years and four months in prison.
An official source at the Prosecutor-General’s Office says the sentence followed his conviction on charges of not reporting the being prepared mutiny of the former deputy defense minister, Abduhalim Nazarzoda, bigamy and bribe giving.
“Rizoyev knew about the mutiny in August 2015 while working as labor migrant in the Russian city of Irkutsk,” the source said.
According to him, Rizoyev was detained in March this year in one of restaurants in Dushanbe while attempting to give a bribe.
Criminal proceedings have reportedly been instituted against Rizoyev under the provisions of three articles of Tajikistan’s Penal Code: Article 347 – not reporting a crime; Article 320 – bribe giving; and Article 170 – bigamy.
Rizoyev will serve his term in a high-security penal colony.
Recall, Abduhalim Nazarzoda, who was promoted to deputy defense minister in 2014, was accused in 2015 of leading what the government calls a "terrorist" attack — a spate of violence that left at least nine police and 17 militants dead on September 4, 2015.
Nazarzoda, his alleged associate Colonel Juhaidulloh Umarov, and several other gunmen then fled to the Romit Gorge, adjacent to Vahdat Township, where security forces targeted them in a large-scale manhunt that ended September 16 with Dushanbe's announcement of their deaths.
Shortly after the attacks, Nazarzoda was sacked for "committing a crime" and was later charged with treason, terrorism, sabotage, and creating an extremist group.
In May 2016, Nazazoda’s son, Bahtiyor Nazarov, was found guilty of public calls for mass disorder in attempting to change the country's constitutional order and for intentionally failing to report a crime. A Dushanbe court sentenced him to 22 years in jail.
