Komyor Mirzoev, a blogger and civil activist from Gorno-Badakhshan, was detained in Moscow and illegally transported from Russia to Dushanbe.
Earlier, one of the sources in the law enforcement agencies of Tajikistan, on anonymous terms, said that Mirzoev actively posted false information about the events in GBAO under an assumed name, and also called on people from GBAO to hold unauthorized protest actions near the Embassy of Tajikistan in Moscow. For this reason, a criminal case was initiated against him. Now there is reliable information that a case has been initiated against Komyor Mirzoev under Part 2 of Article 187 “Participation in a criminal community”. He has been put on the wanted list (search case No. 350007 dated August 25, 2022; the preventive measure is arrest).
On the basis of a circular on the interstate search, officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Nizhny Novgorod district of Moscow detained Komyor on September 5 and took him to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he was detained in accordance with Articles 91 and 92 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.
As noted in the decision of the Inter-District Prosecutor’s Office of Lefortovo, the initiator of the search was notified of the detention of Mirzoev K. on the territory of the Russian Federation.
However, then the decision states that the initiator didn’t confirm the intention to demand the extradition of Mirzoev for criminal prosecution, but asks not to detain him, not to place him in the temporary detention facility and to assist in transferring him in a simplified manner (expulsion, deportation) to the Republic of Tajikistan.
Based on the foregoing, the Inter-District Prosecutor’s Office of Lefortovo decided to release Komyor Mirzoev (who is on the interstate wanted list) from custody.
Immediately after his release, Komyor was handed over to employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Tajikistan and illegally taken to Dushanbe.
“The point is that,” says Russian human rights activist Sergey Usov, “that if Tajikistan had presented evidence, and it would have presented it, fabricated it, but presented it, then the case would have been considered by the court, but the defense would have insisted on the application of the Convention against Torture, Article 3 which states that ‘no state party shall expel, return or extradite any person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be in danger of being subjected to torture’, and lawyers would have declared that their client would be tortured and ill-treated in Tajikistan, and therefore he cannot be expelled from Russia. In short, it would be a long story with an unknown end. So, they released him, but where did he go then, these are no longer questions for us, our hands are clean.”
According to sources, Mirzoev is in the basements of the Department for Combating Organized Crime and faces a sentence of eight to twelve years in prison.
