A Death in Detention Puts Tajikistan’s Police on Trial

Tajikistan’s Supreme Court began hearing a criminal case on June 1 against six former police officers from Dushanbe’s Sino district, accused of involvement in the death in detention of 36-year-old Maksudjon Saidov. Two hearings have been held so far. Five defendants are present in court; the sixth has fled and is wanted. The proceedings are open, with relatives of the officers attending and four lawyers representing the defense.

Saidov, a resident of the southern city of Kulob, was detained on January 8 on suspicion of selling methamphetamine, a synthetic drug whose use has surged among young Tajiks, and transported to the capital for interrogation. He died in a police station days later. On January 12, his body was returned to his family with a request to bury him quickly; friends who spoke to RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, Radio Ozodi, on condition of anonymity said the body bore bruises and burns, and that authorities, fearing protests, asked the family to stay silent. Even Kulob’s own police department called the operation “a kind of arbitrariness,” since local law enforcement was never notified that Dushanbe officers were detaining a man on its territory.

After a four-month investigation, the officers stand charged with “intentional infliction of grave bodily harm” and “abuse of office.” Sources familiar with the case state that none of the six has been charged with torture, even though Tajikistan criminalized torture as a distinct offense under Article 143(1) of its criminal code back in 2012. Prosecutors have declined to comment on the case.

That a trial is happening at all is the anomaly. According to Justice Ministry data, only 13 people were convicted of torture in Tajikistan between 2018 and 2025, despite more than a hundred official complaints against police and security officers over the same period. The Coalition Against Torture, a civil society group, received 21 complaints in 2025 alone, all against the Interior Ministry, describing beatings, electric shocks, coerced confessions, and denial of access to lawyers and medical care. Torture allegations are typically investigated by the very agencies whose officers stand accused, creating room for evidence tampering and witness intimidation, while victims and their families are pressured to withdraw complaints.

Across Central Asia, rights advocates note, most torture complaints never reach the stage of a criminal case, feeding a sense of impunity within the security services. Even convictions can prove short-lived: a 2012 prison sentence handed to an officer for torturing a teenager was later overturned at the Supreme Court’s insistence.

Saidov’s death fits an established pattern. In October 2025, 29-year-old Saidazam Rahmonov, forced by German immigration authorities to return to Tajikistan, died in custody after being detained at Dushanbe airport; authorities claimed suicide, while his relatives said the body showed signs of beatings and torture.

Human Rights Watch has also documented opposition figures who have disappeared from abroad and resurfaced in Tajik detention with signs of torture before receiving 20- and 30-year sentences in closed trials. Reviewing Tajikistan in May, the U.N. Committee Against Torture raised concerns over deaths in detention allegedly linked to torture and ill-treatment and urged Dushanbe to ensure prompt, thorough, and impartial investigations by independent bodies — the U.N. has long noted that Tajik courts accept confessions extracted under duress, in violation of both national law and the country’s international obligations.

The Saidov trial offers his family a rare chance at accountability, and the open proceedings are a departure from the closed-door norm. But by prosecuting grave bodily harm and abuse of office rather than torture, the state gets to punish individual officers while keeping the systemic practice, the one its own criminal code names, off the record, and a verdict on lesser charges would let Dushanbe claim justice was done without ever admitting what killed Maksudjon Saidov.