Tajikistan Asks Interpol to Help Find Rebel Colonel
Posted on: Tuesday, 27 May 2008, 06:00 CDT
Tajikistan has asked Interpol to place rebel colonel Mahmud Khudoyberdiyev, who is allegedly hiding in neighbouring Uzbekistan, on its wanted list, the Tajik newspaper Farazh reported on 1 May.
The paper reported that this was said by Foziljon Okhunov, prosecutor of Tajikistan`s southern Khatlon Region, at a recent news conference.
"Interpol has asked the Khatlon regional prosecutor's office to translate all data on Mahmud Khudoyberdiyev into the Arabic and Russian languages and hand them over to this influential international law-enforcement agency," the paper quoted Okhunov as saying. Okhunov also said that the head of the Interpol office in Tajikistan, Sherali Sabzov, had pledged to search for the rebel colonel on the territories of the Interpol member states and if Khudoyberdiyev was found he would raise the issue of handing him over to Tajikistan.
Foziljon Okhunov said that he did not know the whereabouts of rebel colonel Mahmud Khudoyberdiyev, who is accused of masterminding a coup attempt in 1998 and had been on the wanted list for the past 10 years. Okhunov also said that he "could not confirm rumours that he is on the territory of Uzbekistan".
The authorities announced several years ago that Mahmud Khudoyberdiyev and his "supporters and accomplices were hiding on the territory of Uzbekistan and were probably enjoying support from that country's military agencies" the paper recalled. "The Tajik prosecutor-general, Bobojon Bobokhonov, held a news conference to this effect in June 2007 where he said: `Tajikistan has repeatedly asked Uzbekistan to hand over fugitive colonel Mahmud Khudoyberdiyev together with his supporters and accomplices to Tajikistan, but Uzbekistan has not shown any reaction to our request," the paper said. Bobokhonov told the news conference that "after the events of 1998, a number of Tajik citizens crossed the Tajik border together with Mahmud Khudoyberdiyev and are working and living on the territory of Uzbekistan. This is not a secret. However, the authorities in Tashkent have not yet handed over any of the criminals who supported Khudoyberdiyev, although we have requested it thousands of times and lodged official requests. There have been no positive results."
The paper went on to say: "However, the Uzbek authorities deny the claims that Mahmud Khudoyberdiyev and a group of his supporters are living in Uzbekistan. Officials in Dushanbe hope that now that Khudoyberdiyev is included in the international wanted list and the involvement of Interpol in the search of Khudoyberdiyev will raise the probability of his detention and extradition to Tajikistan. This is because Uzbekistan is also an Interpol member and cannot ignore Tajikistan's request to detain and extradite Khudoyberdiyev to Tajikistan, the paper said.
(Report ran to about 2000 words, no further processing planned)
Originally published by Faraj, Dushanbe, in Tajik 1 May 08 p12.
(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Central Asia. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
Source: BBC Monitoring Central Asia
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