KHUJAND, December 16, 2012, Asia-Plus  -- The trial Abdurahim Rasoulov, ex-director-general of the Zarya Vostoka plant in the city of Istiqlol (formerly Taboshar), Sughd province has begun in a court in Istiqlol this week.

Judge Umedjon Rahmatjoni, who is presiding over the trial, says he has ordered the adjournment because the court has prescribed a complex accounting examination at the Ministry of Justice.  

We will recall that the ex-director-general of the Zarya Vostoka plant and a number of his subordinates were detained in July 2010 on suspicion of having been involved in a large-scale embezzlement of state funds. 

Rasoulov had served as director general of Zarya Vostoka since 2004.  From 1998 to 2004, he served as deputy prime minister of Tajikistan, deputy governor of Sughd province, deputy mayor of Chkalovsk, and mayor of Qairoqqum.

According to the Sughd law enforcement authorities, acting in collusion, Rasoulov, the plant engineer-in-chief Abdushukur Urazboyev and five other managers of the enterprise embezzled 1,716,598 somoni (equivalent to more than 392,000 U.S. dollars).

Founded in 1968, Zarya Vostoka had been one of enterprises of the defense industry in the Soviet time.  Today, it is one of the largest industrial enterprises in Sughd province.  Zarya Vostoka now produces consumer goods.