DUSHANBE, December 16, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- The State Committee for National Security and the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office have completed investigation into a case of 49 confederates of late Tajik Emergencies Minister Mirzo Ziyoev, who are charged with organizing illegal armed formation and committing a number of serious crimes in Tajikistan.

The reliable source at the Prosecutor-General’s Office told Asia-Plus today that among them are also nationals of Russia and Uzbekistan, including the 25-year-old resident of the city of Kizlyar in Russia’s Dagestan Republic Magomed Satsiyullayev.  The case has moved to the Supreme Court, the source said.

We will recall that Mirzo Ziyoev was one of the top military commanders of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) during the 1992-97 civil war.  After the 1997 peace agreement, he was eventually given his ministerial post as part of the power-sharing deal that ended the civil war.  The ministry was disbanded in 2006.

Mirzo Ziyoev was shot dead on July 11 this year during a special security operation in the Tavildara district, Rasht Valley.  Tajik officials said he was killed in an ambush by his own supporters.