The secretive “coup” trial of nearly a dozen former Tajik officials, politicians, and journalists ended in lengthy sentences, according to reporting by RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, Radio Ozodi.
In November 2024, a closed-door trial began in Tajikistan with eight defendants – including several politicians, a former foreign minister, and several other officials – reportedly accused of plotting a coup. In January prosecutors asked for lengthy prison terms, 20-30 years, for the defendants.
Ozodi reported in early February that Saidjafar Usmonzoda, the former leader of Tajikistan’s Democratic Party, who appeared to be at the center of the case, as well as former Tajik Foreign Minister Hamrohkhon Zarifi were sentenced to 27 years in prison. The two men were detained in June 2024.
Several defendants received 18-year sentences: Shakirjon Hakimov, a lawyer and first deputy chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Tajikistan; Ahmadshoh Komilzoda, a former journalist with VOA until 2011 and Usmonzoda’s deputy in the Democratic Party; Akbarshoh Iskandarov, acting president of Tajikistan for less than two months in 1992 and more recently at the Tajik Academy of Sciences following positions as ambassador to Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan; and Nuramin Ganizoda, a retired State Committee for National Security colonel.
Another retired colonel, Jamshed Boev, was named in previous reporting on the case, but his sentence has not yet been reported in local media.
Abdulfaiz Atoi, a former Foreign Ministry press secretary who also did stints as consul in Kunduz, Afghanistan, received a 17-year sentence.
Separately, Hakimov’s niece, journalist Rukhshona Hakimova, was tried on unspecified charges – although Ozodi’s sources said she was charged with treason. She was given a 8-year sentence.
With the case classified, and court proceedings held behind closed doors, there’s very little known about the allegations. Local media reported the charges as including violations of articles 305 (“high treason”), 306 (“seizure of power”), 247 (“fraud”), and 189 (“incitement of national, racial, local or religious hatred”) of the Criminal Code.
Writing about the case in December, I noted:
The eight men, most of them in their 60s and 70s, are on trial together… From the outside, however, the case seems strange. To varying degrees, all of the accused spent their lives serving the Tajik state, which has been dominated by President Rahmon and his family since 1992.
The Democratic Party [Usmonzoda] led for more than a decade was often referred to as a “pocket” party, a kind of nominal opposition within a system that did not brook genuine opposition. It seems complete madness for men with such intimate knowledge of the Tajik state to try and orchestrate a coup.
And in January, I wrote: “With no details available officially, and only limited details available via local media, there’s not much that can be said about the case. And that’s precisely the point.”
Over his more than 30 years in power, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon demonized, diminished, and ultimately decimated all political opposition in the name of unity and stability. That those now jailed for an unspecified “coup” plot long worked within his system – as nominal, meek opposition; as ministers and ambassadors – attests to a nervous paranoia in Dushanbe that will never be sated. When a government’s stability is built on the pursuit of its enemies, what happens when there are no more enemies? It’s a trick question; enemies can always be conjured up.