Relative of the Prime Minister of Tajikistan detained

Mukim Ashurov, the father-in-law of the Prime Minister of Tajikistan Kokhir Rasulzoda, has been detained on suspicion of fraud. Law enforcement agencies in the Sughd region initiated a criminal case against him on May 8. The 65-year-old Ashurov has been placed in the pre-trial detention center in Khujand, and his relatives have declined to comment.

The spokesperson for the Sughd Regional Department of Internal Affairs Akbar Sharifov reported on May 30 that “the investigation into Mukim Ashurov’s case is being conducted under part 4 of article 247 (Fraud committed on a particularly large scale) of the Criminal Code of Tajikistan,” which provides for punishment in the form of a fine or imprisonment for a term of 8 to 12 years.

“It has been established that several years ago he gained the trust of a resident of Khujand and received $320,000 from him for the sale of a four-story store. However, he then sold this store to another person but did not return the initially received amount,” Sharifov said. The opinions of Mukim Ashurov and his lawyer are unknown, and his relatives have also declined to communicate with the press. A person close to the family told Radio Ozodi that “the issue should be resolved.” It was mentioned that “the damage caused to the plaintiff will be compensated in the near future.”

There is little publicly available information about Mukim Ashurov. According to official information, he is a resident of the Bobojon Gafurov district. A Facebook account under the name Mukim Ashurov has been found, indicating Khujand as his place of residence and listing his position as the director of the travel company “Sputnik.” He is referred to as the father-in-law of the country’s Prime Minister Kokhir Rasulzoda. The detained man’s son Parviz Ashurov is married to the eldest daughter of this high-ranking official.

Mukim Ashurov’s detention followed the publication of a journalistic investigation that revealed information about the properties of some close relatives of Kokhir Rasulzoda in Dubai, Dushanbe, and Khujand. This material caused a huge resonance in the Tajik segment of social networks.

On May 16, an article was published on the Radio Ozodi website stating that OCCRP experts, as part of the Dubai Unlocked project, discovered documents indicating the presence of real estate in Dubai owned by Ikbolkhon Nozirova (Ikhbolkhon Nazirova), the wife of the Prime Minister of Tajikistan Kokhir Rasulzoda. The day after the publication, on May 17, an email from an address apparently belonging to the Prime Minister of Tajikistan was sent to Radio Ozodi, signed by the “secretariat of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Tajikistan,” stating: “In response to the material from Radio Ozodi dated May 16, 2024, which was published on social networks, we inform you that the information contained in this material about the villas allegedly owned by the wife of the Prime Minister of Tajikistan has no real basis and does not correspond to reality.”

In response, Radio Ozodi sent a letter to this email requesting confirmation that the email belongs to the secretariat of the Prime Minister of Tajikistan. Our request has so far gone unanswered. Meanwhile, on May 27, OCCRP published on its website the full text of the investigation on this topic, and the position of the Prime Minister of Tajikistan and his relatives on this matter is unknown.

Kohir Rasulzoda has been the Prime Minister of Tajikistan since 2013. Prior to that, he was the chairman of the Sughd region and the Minister of Melioration and Water Resources.