Uznews.net, Nukus, 30 Jul 2008 – The police in Nukus is dragging out the investigation into the case of detained journalist and human rights activist Salijon Abdurahmanov and the reason for this, his lawyer believes, is police’s inability to prove his guilt.
For more than a week now the case of Uznews.net’s correspondent in Karakalpakstan Salijon Abdurahmanov, who was arrested in Nukus on 7 June on charges of storing drugs, has been frozen.
The last thing Nukus police officers who are investigating the journalist’s case did was to study the content of his computer and other materials seized from his: books, documents, notes, audio and video discs.
It seems that none of this helped support the charges. It only allowed investigators to learn about the rich and diverse journalistic work of Abdurahmanov.
As for drug charges under Article 276, Part 2 of the Uzbek Criminal Code, investigators had problems here too.
Abdurahmanov maintained that the drugs found in the boot of his car on 7 June were planted. Moreover, the journalist is convinced that police officers themselves had organised this provocation against him.
Medical expert examinations conducted by the Nukus town police department also confirmed the journalist’s position and established that Abdurahmanov did not use drugs. Since the investigation did not accuse him of selling drugs, there is no logic in him carrying drugs in his car.
At the same time, the journalist’s brother and lawyer Bahrom Abdurahmanov said, the investigators have been rejecting three appeals filed by him for more than a month now.
The lawyer demanded fingerprints be taken from the car and packets of drugs to establish whether Salijon touched them.
The second demand was that sniffer dogs’ ability to sniff drugs hidden in a car boot be checked since they did not sniff anything when Abdurahmanov stopped his car for a police check.
Finally, the lawyer demanded that fingerprints of all personnel working in the garage where Salijon parked his car be taken to establish their involvement in planting the drugs.
It is possible that the police department has not satisfied these demands because its officers are worried that the results of these examinations will finally destroy the slim charges brought up against the journalist.
“The case is being dragged out. I think that the investigators do not know how to make the case more or less believable. They are failing to do so because there is always one truth,” lawyer Bahrom Abdurahmanov said.
Meanwhile, the case of Salijon Abdurahmanov is being discussed in the EU and the German government as one of the examples that the Uzbek authorities are actually not going to change their domestic policy and continuing to persecute free voices in the country, while their involvement in a human rights dialogue with the EU is just a window dressing.
Human Rights Watch said that the detention of Salijon Abdurahmanov showed that Uzbekistan did not deserve the abolition of the sanctions imposed by the EU in 2005 over the massacre in Andijan.
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