Former chairman of the State Security Service of Uzbekistan was sentenced to 18 years
On September 27, the Military Court of Uzbekistan announced a guilty verdict against the former chairman of the State Security Service (SSS) of the Republic of Uzbekistan Ikhtiyor Abdullaev and members of his criminal community.
By the court verdict, Ikhtiyor Abdullaev was found guilty of organizing a criminal community, receiving bribes, entering into transactions contrary to the interests of the Republic of Uzbekistan, extortion, theft of other people’s property, violation of customs legislation on an especially large scale, in the interests of an organized group and criminal community, and a number of other criminal offenses, through abuse of power, for which, in the aggregate of crimes, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
There is a version that the matter is not in the numerous acts that ruined hundreds of people, but in the personal hate of President Mirziyoev. He became aware of a conspiracy aimed at changing the political course and overthrowing legitimate power. Even a network of informants was created for multi-level surveillance of members of the presidential family, which posed a threat to their lives. Therefore, it was no coincidence that on February 2, Shavkat Mirziyoev appointed the father of his daughter’s husband Batyr Tursunov the first deputy chairman of the State Security Service.
“It used to be done to the members of the People’s Movement “Birlik”, then to the supporters of Muhammad Salih, Andijan refugees, human rights activists and journalists, but now they are also deal shortly with those who committed the same reprisals. It’s time to think Mirziyoev that he himself can easily become a victim of his own system of punishment or his children will repeat the fate of Gulnara Karimova. It may well be so,” says Nadejda Ataeva, the President of the Association “Human Rights in Central Asia”.
According to anonymous sources, 37 high-ranking officials and law enforcement agencies formed then the backbone of the “support group” of Abdullaev. The published list of convicts in the case of Abdullaev includes only a few of them: former deputy chairman of the State Security Service, Jakhangir Igamov, sentenced to 16 years; former adviser to the chairman of the State Security Service Alisher Ishanhodzhaev, sentenced to 17 years; former deputy prosecutor of Tashkent, Yorkin Abdullaev, sentenced to 14 years; former deputy Head of the department for work with staff of the Ministry of Justice, Yusufbay Khodjaev, sentenced to 8 years; former Deputy Prosecutor General Gairat Khidoyatov, sentenced to 5 years; former deputy chairman of the Supreme Court Bahadir Dekhkanov, sentenced to 5 years; former Prosecutor of Namangan region Ulugbek Toshev, sentenced to 5 years in prison with deprivation to hold official and materially responsible positions for a certain period.
At a closed-door trial of more than two months, more than three hundred victims and witnesses were questioned.
The well-known political scientist Alisher Ilhamov is unhappy that once again the high-profile corruption case, which is of great public interest, is being held behind closed doors. “Neither the full text of the indictment, nor the full text of the court decision is published and again inaccessible to the public. Therefore, we, ordinary citizens, should be content with such brief messages. That is why there is no confidence in such court decisions, there is no certainty that this decision is not just another reprisal against a group that is competing with the current President. Justice, which would meet international standards, as it was not under Karimov, as well doesn’t exist now.”
