Tajik Prosecutor Steps Down in Major Shakeup
Reshuffle preceded by unusually public row between rival crime agencies.
Tajik Prosecutor Steps Down in Major Shakeup
Reshuffle preceded by unusually public row between rival crime agencies.
When it was established in 2007, the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption acquired functions that appeared to overlap with those of the state prosecution service, and this created friction between the two bodies.
Formally, Bobojonov retired rather than being pushed. His principal deputy was dismissed at the same time.
Announcing the change on January 30, President Imomali Rahmon named a former head of the anti-corruption agency, Sherkhon Salimzoda, currently State Secretary for Legal Policy, as the new Prosecutor General.
The Senate, the upper house of the Tajik parliament, had to be convened in emergency session to approve the appointment.
In the preceding weeks, the prosecution and anti-corruption services had openly attacked one another.
On January 12, Bobokhonov used a routine press conference, intended to run through the prosecution service’s activities in 2009, to launch a broadside on anti-corruption officers who he said had gone out of their way to set his men up.
He said the anti-corruption agency had detained criminals, in some cases even murderers, and then offered them inducements to bribe prosecutors, in order to catch the latter red-handed.
“They told them, “Go and bribe the prosecutor and we’ll get him,” said Bobokhonov. “That’s the wrong method…. If you catch a criminal you should hand him over to the law-enforcement agencies, not use him against someone.”
The anti-corruption agency responded on January 26, using its own yearly press conference.
Agency head Fattoh Saidov dismissed Bobokhonov’s allegations as groundless. No one had been set up, he said. Instead, his officers merely acted on complaints from the families of detainees from whom prosecutors were extorting bribes.
Analysts in Tajikistan say the root cause of the animosity between the prosecution service and anti-corruption agency is that their functions overlap.
The prosecution service was until relatively recently an all-powerful arm of state – a status it carried over from Soviet times – and judges tended to be led by the evidence it brought.
Changes to the law that come into force this spring transfer the crucial right to issue arrest warrants from the prosecutors’ office to the courts, bringing Tajikistan into line with international good practice.
Under Bobokhonov, the service has tried to claw back powers that have been gradually slipping away to the judiciary and anti-corruption officials. (See Tajik Prosecutors Take On Courts, RCA No. 586, 07-Aug-09.)
In comparison, the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption is a newcomer. The agency has since been busily burnishing its reputation, not least since it was set up with the blessing of the international community, which recommended hiving off the task of tackling corruption from the prosecution service.
According to a study two years ago by the Institute for Strategic Studies, which has links to President Rahmon’s office, many or even most bribery cases take place in the period between a suspect is detained and before he goes to trial, and police, court officials and prosecutors are on the take.
“Initially the anti-corruption agency was conceived not as an executive structure but rather as an analytical centre. However, then it acquired executive powers as well,” said leading political analyst Parviz Mullojanov, adding that it and the prosecution service “duplicated each other’s functions”.
Anti-corruption officers have extensive powers to conduct investigations in other government agencies, including the prosecution service.
The appointment of Salimzoda, who was the anti-corruption agency’s first head and is seen as close to President Rahmon, is seen by some as another major setback for the prosecution service.
However, Shokirjon Hakimov, an analyst who is also deputy head of the opposition Social Democratic Party, says Bobokhonov had been coming up to retirement age anyway, and was simply irked that possible contenders were jostling for his job.
Aliakbar Abdullaev heads a non-government group called the Centre for Anti-Corruption Education and Propaganda, and believes that the public way this conflict has been conducted is regrettable as it weakens that job of crime-fighting.
Abdullaev recalls that the prosecution service used to coordinate efforts by all law-enforcement agencies via a special council which would convene to hammer out issues in private. “For some reason, the council has ground to a halt in recent years”, he says.
Like a number of analysts, Mullojonov thinks Salimzoda’s arrival as chief prosecutor could help smooth differences with his old workmates in anti-corruption.
Mullojonov adds a note of caution, saying it will take more than just one person to turn the prosecution service round.
Hakimov agreed, saying that while Salimzoda was likely to introduce new recruitment procedures and other reforms, “only time will tell how effective they are”.
To gauge the mood among prosecution staff, IWPR spoke to a senior official who was sanguine, but asked to remain anonymous.
“Sherkhon Salimzoda is a prosecution service man. He’s risen through the ranks,” said the official. “I don’t see this as a tragedy; you just have to see it as it is…..Although they say new brooms sweep clean, I am sure he’s going to make sensible decisions given the experience he has built up in other government agencies.”
Lola Olimova is IWPR Tajikistan editor.
