DUSHANBE (TCA) — Muhiddin Kabiri, the leader of Tajikistan’s banned Islamic Renaissance Party (IRPT), has been added to Interpol’s wanted list on the request from Tajikistan’s authorities.
The Interpol website says that Kabiri is wanted by Tajik authorities for alleged terrorism, fraud and organization of a criminal group.
On June 2, Tajikistan’s Supreme Court sentenced leaders of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) to lengthy prison terms on charges of conspiring with former Defense Minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda in a supposed armed mutiny to seize power in early September 2015. Tajik authorities blamed the IRPT for organizing the mutiny, while the Supreme Court banned the party, designating it an “extremist and terrorist organization”.
The Supreme Court sentenced the IRPT’s first deputy and deputy chairmen, Saidumar Husaini and Mahmadali Hayit, to life in prison. Rahmatulloi Rajab, Sattor Karimov, Kiyomiddini Azav, and Abdukahhori Davlat, other party leaders, all were sentenced to 28 years in prison. The senior IRPT legal adviser, Zarafo Rahmoni, the only woman among the defendants, was sentenced to two years.
The U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan said on June 9 that the trial and harsh sentencing of Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) leaders “silence opposition voices and discourage free and open participation in Tajikistan’s democratic development.”
The Islamic Renaissance Party was the only officially registered Islamic party in the post-Soviet domain.
Kabiri, 51, who now lives in exile in an undisclosed country, has called charges against him and his associates politically motivated.
