Gang leader behind police compound bombing in northern Tajikstan gets over ten years in jail
DUSHANBE. Dec 26 (Interfax) - A court in northern Tajikistan has given a lengthy prison sentence to a member of the extremist religious group Jamaat Ansarullah, also known as the Society of Allah's Soldiers, which was accused by the Tajik authorities of staging an explosion outside a local police compound in 2010, the country's Supreme Court said in a press release.
"The court of the city of Khujand found a resident of the city of Istaravshan, born in 1983, guilty of committing crimes under six articles of the Criminal Code of Tajikistan and sentenced him to ten years and six months in a high-security prison," the court said.
The man was convicted of establishing an armed group or a criminal community, plotting to commit crimes, violently seizing power, and masterminding an extremist organization's actions.
The authorities refused to disclose the convict's name in order to prevent him from becoming "a well known criminal and a martyr."
Jamaat Ansarullah claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack on the building of the Tajik Interior Ministry's Regional Department for the Fight against Organized Crime in Sughd Province in September 2010, when two policemen were killed and another 20 were injured. The Tajik authorities call Jamaat Ansarullaf a branch of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), active in the Fergana Valley, which is shared by Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Most suspected IMU members have been detained in Sughd Province, located in northern Tajikistan.
In 2012, Tajik law enforcement agencies detained 150 members of different extremist organization, including 76 IMU members.
IMU, which is affiliated with Al Qaeda, has called for the violent subversion of the secular governments in Central Asian countries and their transformation into Islamic states.
IMU has already been recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, Russia and other countries.
