Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, known locally as Radio Ozodi, reported on June 19 that Colonel Akmal Yusufzoda, who serves as an Aide to the Chief of the Interior Ministry’s Organized Crime Control Directorate, has been detained on suspicion of abducting Ismoil Rahmonov, a lecturer at the Dushanbe-based Tajik State University of Commerce.
Rahmonov's relatives have reportedly been looking for the body of the 38-year-old father of four in the Zarafshan River amid allegations that Yusufzoda had tied the lecturer’s hands together and thrown him into its waters.
Sources told Radio Ozodi that the incident might have stemmed from a dispute between Rahmonov and Yusufzoda's wife, who works at the same university. Rahmonov teaches management at the university and Yusufzoda's wife teaches English.
According to the sources, Yusufzoda on the night of June 12 forcibly put Rahmonov in a car and drove him in an unknown direction. Since that day, Rahmonov has been reported missing.
The investigative bodies reportedly do not rule out that Rahmonov was killed.
A source close to the investigative bodies told Radio Ozodi on June 19 that during the first interrogations, Yusufzoda has said that he allegedly took Yusufzoda to Varzob district and let him go, “although it may not be true.”
