A case of Dilshod Saidmurodov, suspected of organizing and killing the first deputy head of Orienbonk Shuhrat Ismatulloyev, and 13 other people, suspected of being involved in that crime, has moved to a court.
In a written response to the request of Asia-Plus, the Prosecutor-General’s Office said on November 24 that “after a full and objective investigation, criminal proceedings have been instituted against 14 people, including Dilshod Saidmurodov, and the case moved to the Supreme Court on November 18.”
No other details of the investigation into this case have yet been obtained.
Recall, the suspected organizer of kidnapping and killing of Shuhrat Ismatulloyev, Dilshod Saidmurodov, who is better known as “Dilshod S.B.” was detained in Russia and extradited to Tajikistan in early July.
Tajik authorities have said that Dilshod Saidmurodov was the leader of the criminal group that abducted and killed Shuhrat Ismatulloyev.
After committing the crime he reportedly fled to the Russian Federation.
Saidmurodov previously worked in law enforcement agencies. His employment records include working for the Interior Ministry’s Organized Crime Control Directorate and a stint with the Anti-Cybercrime Unit within the General-Prosecutor’s Office. According to some sources, Saidmurodov had also worked for the state anticorruption agency but had been unemployed in recent years.
Shuhrat Ismatulloyev, 49, the first deputy director of Orienbonk, which is one of the largest financial institutions in Tajikistan, went missing in the evening of June 23 near his home in Dushanbe.
Tajik authorities said the banker was forced by four men into a car with tinted windows and driven away at around 8 p.m. local time.
The Interior Ministry offered a US$30,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the kidnappers.
Two weeks later, the Tajik Prosecutor-General’s Office claimed Ismatulloyev had been killed by his abductors several hours after he was kidnapped.
It said in a July 7 statement that Ismatulloyev was taken to a house in the village of Shodob, outside Dushanbe, where he was beaten, tortured, and subsequently killed by his kidnappers. The banker’s body and the car were thrown into the Zarafshon River, it added.
The crime was allegedly plotted by a 40-year-old Dilshod Saidmurodov, who set up a 10-man “armed criminal group” to carry it out.
The banker’s body was found in the Zarafshon River almost two months later.
