DUSHANBE, July 2, 2014, Asia-Plus --  Former Interior Minister Yoqub Salimov, who has served his jail term in the pretrial detention facility of the Ministry of Justice since February 2003, has reportedly applied for early release on parole.

Salimov’s defense lawyer, Shuhrat Qudratov, says he met with his client in the pretrial detention facility of the Ministry of Justice on June 27.

During the meeting, Salimov reportedly said that he had decided to apply to the Supreme Court for parole.  

“The application copies have been sent to the Prosecutor-General’s Office and the presidential adviser on national security Sherali Khairulloyev,” Qudratov said.

Yoqub Salimov was one of the most powerful figures in Tajik politics after civil war broke out in the spring of 1992.  He was one of the top field commanders in the Popular Front, a paramilitary group that supported the government during the five-year conflict.  Yoqub Salimov was once Tajikistan’s interior minister, ambassador to Turkey, and chairman of the state customs committee. 

In 1990 Yoqub Salimov was convicted for taking part in Dushanbe riots.  When Tajik Civil War broke out, Salimov was released from prison, and became one of leaders of Popular Front.  In 1997 he was charged with attempting a coup d''etat.  Afterwards he fled from Tajikistan, but was arrested in Moscow in 2003.  Salimov had been detained since July 2003 at Moscow''s Lefortovo prison.  On February 24, 2004, he was extradited to Tajikistan.  After a five-month trial that was held behind closed doors, the Supreme Court of Tajikistan found Salimov guilty of treason, banditry, and abuse of office and sentenced him to 15 years in prison on April 25, 2005.

According to the penitentiary system of the Ministry of Justice of Tajikistan, Yoqub Salimov’s prison term was cut by two years in August 2011 under the partial amnesty granted to him.