The Dushanbe city court completed the consideration of criminal proceedings instituted against two men charged with killing two young women with extreme cruelty and declared the verdict on December 22. 

According to the Dushanbe city court press center, Sadullo Raoupov was sentenced to life in prison while Doniyor Safarov was sentenced to 22 years in prison.  Safarov will serve his term in a high-security penal colony.     

Recall, police in mid-September found bodies of two young women in the area near the Kharangon village in Varzob district.  They were identified as the 31-year-old Zarifamo Haidarova and the 18-year-old Mehrafrouz Kholmirzo. 

Zarifamo Haidarova had been reported missing since January 2018 and Mehrafrouz Kholmirzo had been reported missing since April 2020.

Doniyor Safarov and Sadullo Raoupov were detained on suspicion of committing those murders.

The preliminary investigation has reportedly established that Safarov had a close relationship with Zarifamo Haidarova.  In January 2018, he reportedly beat the women out of jealousy and then together with his friend Sadullo Raoupov threw her in the trunk of a car and took to the area near the Kharangon village, where they beat her again and smothered her to death. 

In April 2020, Sadullo Raoupov took Mehrafrouz Kholmirzo to Varzob district and offered her intimacy.  Having been refused, he beat the woman and then took her to the scene of the first crime, where he smothered her to death.