“Police officers detained my son and demanded money for his release”

A resident of the Javan district reported that police officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Khujand detained her son for illegal drug trafficking and demanded money for his release. However, the police deny these allegations.

“They said, bring money and take your son”

Kholdona Gulova, the mother of Sobirjon Saidov, claims that she has an audio recording proving that Muhammad Buzmakov, a police officer from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Khujand, demanded money from her a year ago. But Buzmakov denies these accusations and emphasizes that he did not ask this woman for money. In an interview with Radio Ozodi on July 8, Kholdona Gulova said that she did not give the police officer any money and that her son has been in prison for almost a year now.

“I received a call from the department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Khujand. They handed the phone to my son, and he said that he was taken to Khujand, and that whatever amount this person names, bring that much, but take me out of here. When I asked who it was, my son said his name was Muhammad. Then Muhammad took the phone from my son, I asked about his health and turned on the audio recording. He said, ‘Apa, bring whatever we say.’ At first, he demanded 80,000 somoni, then lowered the ‘bid’ to 40,000 somoni. He said, bring the money, we will release your son,” Gulova recounts.

“That’s not my voice on the audio”

Muhammad Buzmakov, a police officer from Khujand, whom the resident of the Javan district accuses of extortion, said in a phone conversation with Radio Ozodi that there are no grounds for the accusations against him. When asked about the complainant having a recording of their conversation, Buzmakov responded that “the operative is trying to trick her, as it is not easy to catch criminals red-handed.” In response to our further inquiries about the audio recording, he repeatedly emphasized that he did not ask anyone for money and that the voice on the recording is not his. “A court has issued a verdict regarding her son. And when there is a court decision, wherever she appeals or complains, it is all useless. Because there was nothing illegal here,” Buzmakov explained.

The court sentenced Kholdona Gulova’s son to two years in prison. The court documents mention 28.4 grams of a narcotic substance. Sobirjon Saidov’s relatives do not acknowledge the charges against him for illegal drug trafficking.

The young man’s mother says she sent the audio recording of the police officer’s voice to the president’s office and the prosecutor, but did not receive a satisfactory response. The prosecutor of Khujand stated that the investigation deemed this woman’s complaint against the police officers to be unfounded. However, the official response from this agency does not indicate whether the audio recording was checked or not.

“Why were Khujand officers conducting an operation in Javan?”

Lawyers believe that such audio recordings, which are a “bone of contention,” require a fair investigation and expertise. The family of the convicted individual claims that they have not received a response from the authorities regarding their question of why the operation to detain him in the territory of Yavan was carried out by Khujand police officers, rather than officers from Yavan?

Lawyer Bakhtiyor Nasrulloyev told Radio Ozodi that the legislation does not prohibit law enforcement agencies from conducting special operations from one region in another region, and at the same time one of the requirements for conducting such operations is that the management of operational investigative activities must be entrusted to the local police.

Official documents from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the city of Khujand state that after receiving operational information about Sobirjon Saidov’s involvement in the illegal drug trade, an operational detention of Saidov was carried out without delay. Saidov’s mother claims that all these documents are slander and that the goal of the actions of the Khujand police officers was to obtain money. Sobirjon Saidov is 25 years old and was unemployed prior to his detention.

Complaints about corruption in government institutions in Tajikistan, including among police officers, have been made in previous years as well. For instance, former employee of the capital’s police Umid Vakhhobov testified in court that he received $1,600 from the relatives of the detainee for “mitigating the charges” against the suspect. Representatives of the Anti-Corruption Agency have previously stated that in order to prove allegations of bribery, residents must provide evidence.