Tajik general on treason charge after street battles

Tajikistan on Tuesday charged a rebel former deputy defence minister with high treason and terrorism after deadly street battles broke out in the ex-Soviet country last week.

"Major General Abduhalim Nazarzoda and his supporters usurped the law and committed serious crimes against the state and the people of Tajikistan," a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office told AFP.

"They betrayed their homeland," the spokesman said, adding Nazarzoda faces charges of treason, terrorism, sabotage and creating an extremist group.

The spokesman declined to comment on what punishment Nazarzoda could face.

The government of the ex-Soviet country blames Nazarzoda -- a deputy defence minister until his dismissal last week -- for orchestrating attacks that left nine policemen and 13 militants dead in the capital Dushanbe and a provincial town on Friday.

A further four militants were killed in a subsequent air and ground military operation to hunt down the rebels in mountains outside the capital, the interior ministry said.

The interior ministry said more than 60 militants had been detained.

Authorities say Nazarzoda fought on the side of the United Tajik Opposition during a five-year civil war that ended in 1997 and claimed up to 150,000 lives.

The government also claims Nazarzoda belongs to the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), the country's largest opposition faction that was effectively closed down by the government late last month.

The party failed to win a single seat in a disputed March parliamentary vote for the first time since the end of the civil war.

IRPT, which positions itself as a moderate, faith-based party, has denied Nazarzoda is one of its members.

Source: AFP