DUSHANBE (TCA) — At least 10 top investigators and officials of Tajikistan’s Anticorruption Agency have been arrested in recent days, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reports citing law enforcement officials in Dushanbe.
Officials told RFE/RL on April 25 that a former deputy chief of the Anticorruption Agency, Davlatbek Hairzoda, was also detained at the airport of the northern city of Khujand as he was on his way to Russia.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said that officials and investigators who have been arrested are suspected of corruption and fraud.
“It turns out that many officials who should be fighting corruption are in fact corrupt officials themselves,” the chairman of the Tajik parliament’s lower chamber, Shukurjon Zuhurov, said during a parliamentary session on April 26.
He said it is necessary “to bring such officials to justice”.
There has been no official announcement about any arrests.
The chief of the Anticorruption Agency, Sulaimon Sultanzoda, declined to comment to RFE/RL on April 26, saying that information related to the matter is classified as secret.
For almost two years from March 2015, Tajikistan’s Anticorruption Agency was headed by Rustam Emomali, the elder son of Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon. In January 2017, Rustam Emomali was appointed the mayor of the country’s capital, Dushanbe.
