Details of the attack on Hikmatullo Saifullozoda

After the attack on Tajik journalist and political prisoner Hikmatullo Saifullozoda, his relatives informed AZDA TV about the name of the attacker and details of the incident.

Photo: Internet

According to the wife of the imprisoned journalist Farogat Sanginova, the attacker turned out to be convicted murderer Aslidin Tursunov. He attacked Saifullozoda in the medical unit of the colony and struck him on the head with an iron teapot. As a result, Saifullozoda sustained a head injury, and the 70-year-old victim was hospitalized for a week.

Tursunov had previously been hospitalized in the medical unit for 10 days. Sanginova believes that the attacker was deliberately brought there to beat Saifullozoda. She added that the incident was premeditated and resembles an operation aimed at the physical elimination of Mahmadali Hayit.

In a conversation with AZDA TV, Sanginova also reported that her husband had previously been hospitalized in the medical unit of the colony due to a heart condition, and he was supposed to be treated and discharged from the unit. However, over the past week, Saifullozoda had not called his relatives even once.

On September 30, Sanginova was at the Vahdat prison to visit her husband, but she was not allowed into the medical unit. The prison guards told her that no one had attacked her husband and that he was fine.

“In front of the prison building, I insisted and told the guards that I would not leave until I saw my husband. Twenty minutes later, my husband called me, and I asked him how everything happened. My husband said that the attacker was a convicted murderer who attacked him in the medical unit in the middle of the night and hit him on the head with an iron teapot,” added Farogat Sanginova.

On September 9, “Reporters Without Borders” (RSF) issued a statement to the government of Tajikistan, calling for the release of Hikmatullo Saifullozoda from prison. “Saifullozoda has been in prison since 2015, and his life is in danger,” the statement said.

Hikmatullo Saifullozoda, former editor-in-chief of the weekly “Najot” of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan, and one of the country’s most well-known analysts, is currently held in a new prison in Vahdat.

Former member of the Supreme Presidium of the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan Hikmatullo Saifullozoda was arrested in 2015 on fabricated charges and sentenced to 16 years in prison.