Investigation into Attempted Assassination of Uzbekistan’s Komil Allamjonov Expands to Include Russian Suspects with Chechen Ties

Source: Interpol

Written by Exec-Edge

The ongoing investigation by the Uzbek government into the attempted assassination of former presidential press secretary Komil Allamjonov has been expanded to include two Russian men with ties to Chechnya.

Last week, Uzbekistan indicted Bislan Rasaev, 36, and Shamil Temrihanov, 31, and weapons, smuggling and illegal border crossing charges related to the late October attempt to kill Allamjonov near his home in Tashkent. The government has requested the help of Interpol to find the suspects.

Officials in Uzbekistan say the suspects were promised $1.5 million from an unknown source to kill Allamjonov and Dmitry Li, the head of the National Agency for Prospective Projects of Uzbekistan, which is responsible for regulating crypto-currency, capital markets, insurance, e-commerce, lottery and gambling activities.

Uzbek authorities said one of the suspects illegally crossed the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border and the other came to a checkpoint on the border of both countries.

Rasaev is known to international law enforcement officials. In 2021, he and seven other men became arrested in Turkey for allegedly planning to attack critics of the Chechen leadership. When raiding two apartments in Turkey, officers found weapons and ammunition.

According to the Turkish National Intelligence Organization at that timeRasaev was acting on the orders of Chechen politicians and Chechen boxer Kazbek Dukuzov, who had been connected in the killing of an American journalist Paul Klebnikov. However it asked by Turkish authorities, there is no record of Rasaev’s conviction.

Allamjonov was being taken home in the early hours of October 26, when two men rode up on a motorcycle you have been fired shot several times at the car he was traveling in. Allamjonov and the driver were not injured. Several suspects were quickly caught, but one, related to the Uzbek embassy in South Korea, escaped Seoulwhere he was eventually captured and returned to Uzbekistan. After this attack, the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev you have been fired several senior government security officials, including the Chief of State Security Abdusalom Azizov, and his deputy Otabek Umarovson-in-law of the president.

Allamjonov left political office in September. During his tenure, he was part of Mirziyoyev’s efforts to transform the former Soviet republic into a free, Western-oriented state. the majority. He helped lead changes to the 2023 constitution that introduced personal freedoms in the country for the first time. He is open citizens’ access to foreign and independent media and urged Uzbekistan’s journalists to hold government officials accountable. He worked closely in reform efforts with Saida Mirziyoyev, the president’s eldest daughter and No. 2 in the government.

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