Jailed Tajik Opposition Politician's Lawyer Detained

Tajik lawyer Jamshed Yorov

The lawyer of a jailed Tajik opposition politician has been detained, his relatives say.

Jamshed Yorov's relatives told RFE/RL that the lawyer was detained on August 22 on suspicion of disclosing a closed-door Supreme Court ruling on members of the banned opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT).

Yorov represented Muhammadali Hayit, the deputy chairman of the IRPT, at a closed-door trial held earlier this summer.

On August 23, Hayit's relatives said that the politician's wife and 17-year-old son had gone missing after several men in civilian clothes took them from their home in Dushanbe.

Hayit and another party deputy, Saidumar Husaini, were sentenced to life in prison in June.

A court in Dushanbe found them and several other members of the party guilty of conspiring with former Defense Minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda in a supposed armed bid to seize power in September 2015.

The IRPT leader Muhiddin Kabiri, who now lives in exile, has rejected the accusations.