DUSHANBE, May 7, 2015, Asia-Plus – The Interior Ministry today organized a meeting of representatives of media with a Tajik man who voluntarily returned from fighting in Syria.

The 25-year-old resident of the northern city of Khujand, Farrukh Sharipov, returned from Turkey on May 6.

He told journalists that he had been recruited through the social network.  Farrukh described how he had started to chat a young woman from Russia he met on the Russian social-networking site Odnoklassniki.

After some time, he reportedly traveled to Moscow and from there he was sent to Turkey.  Farrukh says they destroyed his passport in Turkey and sent him to Syria.

According to him, when he arrived in Syria he understood that they deceived him.  “All those who are there have only one thought how to return home but they fear to suggest this because they will be executed even if they breathe a word of their wish to return home,” Farrukh Sharipov noted.

We will recall that Farrukh Sharipov is the fifth Tajik national who has returned voluntarily from fighting in Syria.

Tajiks who return from Syria voluntarily and express remorse are reportedly exempt from punishment under Article 187 of Tajikistan''s Penal Code.