DUSHANBE, August 17, Asia-Plus — The Supreme Court has sentenced two former inmates at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo, Cuba, to long jail terms. 

The Supreme Court on August 17 ruled that two former inmates at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo, Cuba, Muqit Vohidov and Ruhniddin Sharopov be given jail term of 17 years each and that they should serve their sentences in a high-security penal colony.  

Judge Musammir Uroqov, who took in the trial, told Asia-Plus that Vohidov and Sharopov were charged under two articles of Tajikistan’s Criminal Code – Article 335, Part 2 (illegally crossing the border) and Article 401, Part 3 (participation in armed conflict as mercenary) 

The judge added that the Supreme Court had failed to get any documentary information about their holding in the Guantanamo detention facility.   

“Vohidov and Sharopov did not admit the sentence pleading to ignorance,” said Uroqov, “They said they had not realized consequences of their actions.”  

The trial of Muqit Vohidov and Ruhniddin Sharopov began in the Supreme Court on August 7.

Vohidov and Sharopov are residents of the Isfara district.  They illegally crossed the Tajik border into Afghanistan in early 2001 and joined the armed group of one of leaders of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) Juma Namangani.  In November 2001, they were detained by militants of Afghan General Adbulrashid Dustum and handed over to the U.S. servicemen and later, they were sent to Guantanamo.  They were sent back to Tajikistan from Guantanamo in March this year.    

It is already the second case when former Guantanamo inmates stand trail in Tajikistan.    

We will recall that a court in the Khatlon province in March this year sentenced Ibrohim Nasriddinov, a former Guantanamo inmate, to 23 years in prison on murder and weapons charges.  The court found that Nasriddinov was a member of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.  Odil Yorbekov, Nasriddinov''s defense lawyer, said that his client pleaded guilty to all charges. According to him, his client committed a contract murder using a handmade explosive device in Danghara in 2000, and in order to escape punishment fled to Afghanistan and joined terrorists. He underwent military training in Afghanistan and Pakistan for several years. In 2006, he was detained in Kunduz by U.S. Special Forces and sent to Guantanamo."