Tajik medic arrested for withholding information about terrorist

DUSHANBE (Itar-Tass) - A medic from eastern Tajikistan
was arrested on accusations of withholding information about the
whereabouts of a man, believed to be the leader of a local terrorist
group, a source from the Tajik Interior Ministry told Tass on Friday.
The source said that last autumn medic Abdullo Vazirov of a district
out-patient clinic in Tajikistan's Rasht region made a surgical operation
on one of the leaders of a gunmen group, Alovuddin Davlatov, wounded in a
shootout with government troops.
"Vazirov surely knew that an anti-terrorist operation to neutralize
gunmen, including Davlatov, was underway in the region," the source said.
"However, he did not say anything thus becoming an involuntary accomplice
of terrorists," the officer stressed. If his guilt is confirmed, the medic
will face up to five years in prison.
Davlatov's group, including its leader, was killed during the
anti-terrorist operation. It was accused of an attack on a car convoy of
the Tajik Defence Ministry last September, in which 28 soldiers and
officers were killed. Davlatov's father and an elder brother were arrested.
According to a source from Tajik secret services, the terrorist
underworld of the Rasht region has been defeated. Some gunmen have been
killed, over 30 have surrendered arms under guarantees of President
Emomali Rakhmon, who said they would not be persecuted.
Law enforcement officers believe that two or three small-size gunmen
groups may be hiding in the Pamir Mountains, and their liquidation is just
a matter of time.