Images of a horrendous vehicle crash closing week within the coronary heart of Tajikistan’s capital had been circulating extensively on social media and among messaging app users. Multiple resources have now confirmed to Eurasianet that fatalities inside the accident, which happened on the night of March 23, blanketed the son-in-law of Saimumin Yatimov, the pinnacle of the country’s feared security offerings.
Footage of the crash captured via site visitors digicam showed a Lexus SUV driving at high velocity alongside Dushanbe’s valuable Rudaki street earlier than plowing right into a lamppost. Prague-based news internet site Akhbor cited unnamed sources as announcing that the car drivers have been racing their pals when the collision came about. Two of the passengers were grievously injured, while some other, together with Yatimov’s son-in-law, Saidjafar Saidov, had been killed immediately.
Saidov, 19, married Yatimov’s daughter in January.
Eurasianet has found out that the passengers of the Lexus had earlier inside the evening been attending the marriage birthday party of the more youthful sister of Zarifbek Davlatov, considered one of President Emomali Rahmon’s sons-in-law, at the Hyatt Regency Dushanbe lodge. According to Eurasianet and Akhbor’s resources, following festivities, schoolmates of the bride determined to preserve a car race thru the center of the town. The vehicle worried in the crash belonged to Kabir Kabirov, a son of Dushanbe’s predominant bazaar owner. Kabir, who survived the collision, was admitted to the health facility for treatment but later located in jail, pending investigations.
The different injured passenger became the nephew of the speaker of the upper residence of Parliament, Mahmadsaid Ubaidulloyev. He is in a critical situation. The monied children of Tajikistan’s political and commercial enterprise elite — known informally because the “golden teenagers” — routinely prepare similar high-chance contests. The sound of effective cars tearing thru Dushanbe’s abandoned streets past due at night is common. Rahmon last 12 months accredited regulation envisioning fines of up to $1,500 for humans participating in such illegal races. Still, the sanctions have posted a weak deterrent for near relatives of senior officers. Officials queried via reporters have denied, however, that the driver of the Lexus turned into racing or that he changed into underneath the impact of alcohol.
Under Tajik law, traffic violations leading to fatalities are punishable with the aid of up to 10 years in jail. If the driver is intoxicated, the predicted penalty can upward thrust to 15 years in prison. But enjoy suggests the research into this coincidence won’t be extensive. In September 2016, the 23-12 months-old son of the first deputy high minister crashed his Toyota Camry into a public-utilities automobile, killing one pedestrian and a fellow passenger. Police investigators opened a probe into the coincidence. Still, prosecutors later determined that Faromuz Saidov, who was at the wheel, turned into not blame as “there were technical issues with the automobile.” His father, Salvati Saidov, remains the first deputy most useful to this present day.
Three human beings were killed in October 2014, while Rasul Amonullo, the 16-year-antique son of the chief of Tajikistan’s railway company, plunged his BMW head-on into any other vehicle. No criminal movement was taken in opposition to Amonullo after the Interior Ministry insisted he bore no culpability. Amonullo’s mother was fined $25 for violating legislation on parental responsibility.