DUSHANBE, October 16, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- Over the first nine months of this year, the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption has detected 677 corruption-related crimes, the anticorruption agency director Fattoh Saidov announced at a news conference in Dushanbe on October 15.

“Of these crimes, 115 related bribery and 105 of these bribery-related crimes have been committed by officials,” Saidov said.

Over the report period, criminal proceedings have been instituted against more than 122 employees of the public management system, law enforcement agencies and power-wielding structures, counternarcotics agency. Ministry of defense, land management and architecture bodies, he noted.  They have faced charges of bribery, office abuse and embezzlement of state funds.  “Some of these proceedings have already been considered by courts and those found guilty have been convicted,” Saidov noted.

He noted that officers from the anticorruption agency recently detained an employee of the Prosecutor-General’s Office, Anvar Salimov, who is charged with taking bribe in an amount of 1,500 U.S. dollars from H. for early-conditional release of his son.  “The prosecutor has been caught red-handed.  Criminal proceedings have been instituted against Salimov and an investigation is under way,” the director said.