UZBEKISTAN: Did investigator fabricate evidence against Baptists?

Forum 18 News ^ | 15 Oct | Mushfig Bayram

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Several parents - named as victims in the indictment against three Baptist Union leaders now on trial in Tashkent - have told the court that statements that their children were taught the Baptist faith against their wishes were fabricated or dictated by Investigator Anatoli Tadjibayev, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. The head of Uzbekistan’s Baptist Union Pavel Peichev and two colleagues went on trial on 24 September accused of teaching religion illegally to children at church-run summer camps and evading tax on profits from the camp. They deny all the charges - which carry punishment of up to three years’ imprisonment - and insist the camps made no profit and were supported financially by the Union. Asked whether Investigator Tadjibayev will be punished if the court establishes that he abused his powers, Zulfiya Ahmedova, who represents the prosecution in the case, told Forum 18: “The Prosecutor will have to decide that.”

The head of Uzbekistan’s Baptist Union Pavel Peichev and two colleagues - whose criminal trial began in the capital Tashkent on 24 September - have rejected all the accusations against them, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. Peichev, Yelena Kurbatova, Chief Accountant of the Union, and Dmitri Pitirimov, Director of the Union’s Joy children’s summer camp, face up to three years’ imprisonment if convicted. The three vehemently deny that the Union profited from church-run summer camps, that they evaded paying tax and that they taught their faith to children against their parents’ wishes. Parents cited in the indictment as victims told the court that their statements had been fabricated by the investigator.

[Bellflower]

A ping and a prayer.