Sentence for murder committed over 30 years ago

Two residents of the Pasiarik village in the Dusti district of the Khatlon region were sentenced to 15 years in prison for a murder committed over 30 years ago. In 1993, they killed the director of school No. 11 in the Dusti district, his wife, and three minor children.

As reported by “Asia-Plus,” the senior assistant prosecutor of the Khatlon region, Varka Zainiddin, stated that the regional court found 69-year-old Zainiddin Bakhodiev and 57-year-old Abdurakhmon Tagoev guilty of murdering the director of school No. 11 in the district, Mirzo Odinaev, and his entire family.

“These two were in collusion with another villager, Ortik Faizulloev. In March 1993, Zainiddin Bakhodiev instructed Abdurakhmon Tagoev and Ortik Faizulloev to kill the school director in order to place ‘his’ person in that position.

Tagoev and Faizulloev took the school director, his wife, and three minor children from their home at night, transported them to a collector in the Komsomol village (Tajikabad), and shot them all using an AK-47,” said Varka Zainiddin.

According to him, the district prosecutor’s office initiated a criminal case and conducted an investigation into the murder. “The prosecutor’s office identified the suspects and announced them wanted. In January 2024, Bakhodiev and Tagoev were arrested. During the preliminary investigation and subsequent trial, the guilt of both was established,” the prosecutor reported.

The sentence was announced on June 10, 2024 – they were each given 15 years of imprisonment. The third suspect, Ortik Faizulloev, remains at large.

At the same time, the prosecutor noted that both Zainiddin Bakhodiev and Abdurakhmon Tagoev had already served prison terms for other murders: the former was sentenced to 9 years in prison under Article 104 in August 2011, while the latter received 10 years in prison under the same article in April 2010.