Escaped Tajik Prisoner Recaptured

Abdurasul Mirzoev

DUSHANBE -- Tajik authorities say they have recaptured another inmate who escaped along with 24 others from a Dushanbe prison last month, RFE/RL's Tajik Service reports.

Tajik Interior Ministry press secretary Muhammadjon Nazriev said today that National Security Forces captured Abdurasul Mirzoev near the town of Faizobod in the Vahdat district, 50 kilometers east of Dushanbe.

The 52-year-old was sentenced to 30 years in prison after being apprehended and extradited from the United Arab Emirates earlier this year. He was convicted of illegal possession of weapons, robbery, and plotting to overthrow the government.

On September 2, former Guantanamo inmate Ibrahim Nasridinnov, one of the three people thought to have orchestrated the August 23 escape from the Tajik State Committee of National Security detention center, was also captured by security forces in Vahdat.

Mirzoev is the brother of General Ghaffor Mirzoev, the former presidential guard commander and Tajik Drug Control Agency head, who is serving a life sentence on charges of planning to overthrow the government and other serious crimes. He was sentenced in 2006.

The 23 other escapees, among them five Russian citizens, four Afghans and two Uzbeks, are still at large.