DUSHANBE, August 23, 2010, Asia-Plus – Organizers of escape from the pretrial detention facility run by the State Committee for National Security (GKNB) in Dushanbe have reportedly been identified.

In a report released at a news conference in Dushanbe, Major-General Qosim Ghaffarov, the first deputy director of GKNB, noted on August 23 that three inmates – 36-year-old Ibrohim Nasriddinov from Rumi district, Khatlon province, 37-year-old Hikmat Azizov from Panj district, Khatlon province  and 37-year-old Magomed Akhmedov form Russia’s Dagestan Republic – organized the prison break-out.

“They have been sentenced to long prison terms for killings, organization of criminal group, hostage taking, illegal possession of weapons and use of violence against public agents,” Ghaffarov said.

“Acting in collusion, they killed the prison guard Nurmatqul Karimov, 31, and heavily wounded two other prison guards Sunday night, at 10:15 pm, and seized weapons and ward keys,” said the security official, “They then freed 22 other inmates and attacked the post of the pretrial detention facility run by the Ministry of Justice and killed four other prison guards in fire-fight before making their escape.”

“The fact that among the escaped prisoners are also nationals of Afghanistan and Russia indicates that the crime had transnational character,” said Ghaffarov, “We have entered into cooperation with special services of Afghanistan and Russia to catch the criminals.”