Uznews, Nukus, 18 Sep 2008 – At the trial of journalist and human rights activist Salijon Abdurahmanov in Nukus today, the chief witness of the prosecution – a sniffer dog specialist – gave evidence in favour of the defendant.
Almost three-month-long work of Nukus police that have tried to prove that journalist and human rights activist Salijon Abdurahmanov is a drug dealer made a serious crack today.
The chief witness – sniffer dog specialist Sarsenbay Aytimbayev who was involved in detaining Abdurahmanov on 7 June – after cross-examination by the defendant’s lawyer admitted that his sniffer dog called Maks had not sniffed anything in Abdurahmanov’s car.
This was Salijon and his lawyer Bahrom Abdurahmanov’s defence line after his detention, and they said that the charges were trumped up.
Aytimbayev could not explain as why there was a need to call reinforcement that found the drugs in the boot of Abdurahmanov’s car.
“He is a police officer himself, which is why he cannot say that he was ordered to stop the journalist’s car and invent a pretext to call reinforcement,” the lawyer said. “He may lose his job and even something more for telling the truth.”
Salijon asked the judge to explain the reason for investigators’ failure to try to establish the drug-supply channel if he was indeed a drug dealer.
“Investigators showed greater interest in my journalistic contacts, the ways I received fees and my sources,” he said at the trial.
Salijon’s colleagues and friends came to Nukus to support him at the trial – Kamiljon Ashurov from Samarkand and Dilorom Ishakova and Rustam Tulyaganov from Tashkent.
“Even though our numbers are diminishing in Uzbekistan and the authorities are continuing to persecute and imprison freethinkers, we are still there,” Ashurov said. “At such moments we should support one another – this matters to those who ended up behind bars.”
The trial will continue on 25 September.
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