Tajik Prison Staff Convicted Over Jailbreak

A deputy prison governor and three warders have been convicted of negligence that led to a mass escape from a high-security detention facility in Tajikistan last year. Analysts say more senior officials should have been charged as well, as the jailbreak showed up lax procedures at prisons.

The case relates to the escape of 25 detainees from the detention unit of Tajikistan's State Committee for National Security in the capital Dushanbe late on August 22 last year.

Inmates overpowered their guards, killing three of them, and made off in what seemed to be a planned escape. Obtaining a set of keys, they freed other prisoners, seized weapons, changed into military uniforms that they found, and headed for the main gates, where there were vehicles waiting for them. (See Mass Jailbreak Causes Ripples in Tajikistan.)

After a trial held behind closed doors, the detention centre's deputy head, Saidullo Berdyev, was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years, a prison warder received the same sentence, and two others got five and two years. The verdicts were announced on Tajik state TV on April 4.

Most of the group that escaped were among 46 individuals who had received lengthy sentences for terrorism, drug trafficking, and seeking the violent overthrow of the government.

They had been arrested after a July 2009 security operation in which government forces moved into the Tavildara valley in eastern Tajikistan to crush armed groups operating there. The authorities claimed those detained had links to Islamist groups including the outlawed Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which launched raids in Central Asia in 1999 and 2000, and which in more recent years has been allied with the Taleban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Twelve of the escapees have been captured since August, and nine of them are currently standing trial in Dushanbe. Three others were killed by security forces, and the remaining ten are still at large.

The escape led to a further round of violence in Tavildara, as security forces mounted a manhunt to track down the convicts and met with serious resistance, including an ambush on a military convoy in September that left 25 soldiers dead. (For more on this incident, see Tajik Authorities Struggle to Quell Militants.)

Following the jailbreak, the head of the GKNB and three of his deputies resigned, and the detention centre's head was reassigned to another job. But many believe these resignations and the trial that has just ended will do little to address fundamental problems with prison security.

An anonymous source in one of Tajikistan's law-enforcement agencies, who was privy to the investigation into the case, told IWPR that the documentation revealed a culture of negligence and impunity from top to bottom.

Security procedures were so lax, he said, that "until the incident happened, GKNB staff could turn up at the detention centre any time they liked, as if it was their own home". Staff members' vehicles were not checked, and on the day of the escape, the security detail was reduced and a getaway car was allowed to park without its owner being challenged.

External oversight was also lacking. The prosecution service, for example, conducted monthly checks but failed to spot any problems.

The poor procedures were exploited by inmates led by a former Guantanamo detainee, IWPR's source said.

This man, serving a 25-year sentence for murder imposed in 2007 when he was returned to Tajikistan, had been moved from an ordinary prison to this special facility so that he could pass on intelligence to security officers, the source said. "He was not under guard and was able to move about freely within the facility," he added.

The source said those with ultimate responsibility for security at the prison should also have gone on trial, since although those convicted were responsible for their actions, they had been allowed to get away with it by their superiors.

Other commentators agreed with this view, including Dushanbe lawyer Shuhrat Qudratov, who said that those convicted in the case had been made scapegoats for wider failings.

Political independent expert Parviz Mullojonov believes the GKNB should hold an exhaustive inquiry into the reasons why the escape was allowed to happen. Without this, he warns, similar incidents could occur again.

Irina Melnikova is a pseudonym for a journalist in Tajikistan.

This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway.

The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway.