KHUJAND, April 25, Asia-Plus - Investigation of case against several employees of the “Eskhata” Bank and other persons is still ongoing, Abbos Hasanov, head of the corruption-prevention department of the Sughd prosecutor’s office, said. 

According to him, during investigation of proceedings instituted on November 1 2004 against former officers from the Sughd police department prosecutors established that several employees of the “Eskhata” Bank were involved in a number of crimes.   

“In this connection, the Sughd prosecutor’s office in early February this year instituted criminal proceedings against 16 persons, including seven employees of the “Eskhata” Bank,” said Abbos Hasanov, “These persons face charges ranging from fraud to financial machinations.”  According to him, members of this group were allegedly engaged in embezzlement of state funds by means of providing forged documents for importing goods to Russia on behalf of a firm that had nothing to do with sending goods at all.

Hasanov says, “They submitted to tax services forged documents that they had allegedly paid all taxes.”      

The prosecutor also says that investigation has established that one more employee of the “Eskhata” Bank has been involved in those machinations.    

According to Hasanov, investigation of the proceedings instituted against that group was completed on February 22 2006 .  They are charged with embezzlement, contraband, abuse of powers of employees of commercial and other organizations, office forgery, and production of forged documents.

During March the accused familiarized themselves with case materials and on March 27 it moved to courts and at present 15 persons, including eight employees of the bank, are waiting for trial,” Hasanov said.    

In the meantime, a part of this criminal case has been drawn up as separate criminal proceedings against one businessman from Khujand, who is currently wanted by police, and several other employees of the bank.  Investigation on these criminal proceedings is still ongoing.