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Tajik BBC reporter guilty but freed; West slams trial

14 October 2011 21:46 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A BBC reporter in Tajikistan was sentenced to three years in jail Friday for belonging to a banned Islamist group, but he was immediately granted an amnesty, APA reports quoting Reuters.

There had been widespread Western criticism that Urunboy Usmonov’s trial had been politically motivated.

Usmonov, who had worked for the Central Asian service of the British Broadcasting Corporation for 10 years, was arrested in June and charged with membership of the outlawed Hizb ut-Tahrir. or Party of Liberation.

After being sentenced to three years in jail, Usmonov, who was also found guilty of failing to inform security bodies of meeting Hizb ut-Tahrir members, was immediately released under an amnesty law to mark the 20th anniversary of Tajikistan’s independence from the Soviet Union.

"We believe that the sentence was directly linked to the professional activity of my client," defence lawyer Faiziniso Vokhidova told Reuters by telephone from the regional capital Khujand. "The sentence is unjust and we will appeal it."

Tajikistan, an impoverished and predominantly Muslim former Soviet republic of 7.5 million, has launched a crackdown on religious groups and imprisoned 158 people on charges of extremism last year alone. Many of those jailed were accused of belonging to Hizb ut-Tahrir, or Party of Liberation.

The group says it uses only peaceful methods to achieve its goal of establishing a global caliphate, or theocratic Muslim state.

Tajikistan, which shares a 1,340 km (840 mile) border with Afghanistan, has accused such groups of stoking unrest.