DUSHANBE, October 12, 2011, Asia-Plus  -- Jailed former residential-guard commander Ghaffor Mirzoyev intends to go on an indefinite hunger strike if his demands are not satisfied.

Ghaffor Mirzoyev’s sister Oishamoh Mirzoyeva told Asia-Plus Wednesday afternoon that her brother demands explanation of the sentence passed on him.

“I met with Ghaffor on October 5 and he said that he does agree with the verdict passed against him,” said Ms. Mirzoyeva, “He has repeatedly applied to the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the Parliament, soliciting to review the sentence passed on him.  Replies to his applications, however, did not contain well-grounded explanations.”

According to her, Ghaffor Mirzoyev demands the setting up of a special commission that would review his criminal case.

“If this commission does not give explanations or does not visit him within a month, Ghaffor intends to go on the indefinite hunger strike,” Ms. Oishamoh Mirzoyeva noted.

We will recall that former presidential-guard commander Ghaffor Mirzoyev, who also headed the Tajik Drug Control Agency (DCA), was arrested in August 2004 and sentenced in 2006 to life imprisonment on charges of planning an uprising against the government, murder, and other serious crimes.