VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDBU #0591/01 1190638
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 280638Z APR 08
FM AMEMBASSY DUSHANBE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0446
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 0116
RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL 0143
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L DUSHANBE 000591 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR SCA/CEN AND S/WCI 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/28/2018 
TAGS: PHUM PINR PTER KJUS KDRG TI
SUBJECT: POLOFF GAINS ACCESS TO TAJIK PRISONS, VISITS 
GUANTANAMO RETURNEES 
 
REF: A. A) STATE 18705 
     ¶B. B) DUSHANBE 390 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR TRACEY A. JACOBSON FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D 
) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: On April 24, PolOff visited Sobit Vakhidov 
and Rahmiddin Sharopov, both returnees from Guantanamo now 
held in Tajik prison, pursuant to a 2006 agreement between 
the United States and Tajikistan.  There were numerous 
bureaucratic complications in gaining access to them, and we 
were only able to get a general impression of their treatment 
in Tajik prison colonies.  However, we were also able to get 
some information about the country's penal system, to which 
few internationals have had access in recent years.  End 
summary. 
 
Getting Past the Bureaucracy 
 
¶2. (SBU) Despite the presence of an agreement specifically 
giving U.S. officials access to Guantanamo returnees, the 
Tajik bureaucracy presented a formidable challenge.  Tajik 
authorities have generally refused internationals access to 
prison facilities; they continue to refuse to allow the 
International Committee for the Red Cross to carry out prison 
inspections.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs took more than 
six weeks to coordinate the arrangements with the Ministry of 
Justice, which runs the prison system.  We originally sent 
our request by diplomatic note on March 6. We had several 
meetings with prison officials who did not appear to have the 
instructions that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials 
told us they had sent.  We repeatedly contacted our Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs counterparts to inform them of what their 
Ministry of Justice colleagues told us.  Just as we started 
to think that the authorities intended to deny us access, we 
got a green light for our visit. 
 
High Security ) But Not Maximum Security 
 
¶4. (SBU) We were escorted by Col. Hudamon Muborakqadamov, who 
gave us details of the circumstances under which Vakhidov and 
Sharopov are being held.  (We are using the prisoners' names 
as spelled on their prison uniform.  Several variations exist 
due to inconsistent transliterations.  The names used in 
post's Ref B interim response were SHARIPOV and VOHIDOV.) 
Both prisoners had been convicted by Tajik courts for 
terrorism related offenses (articles 335 and 401 of the Tajik 
Criminal Code ) supporting mercenaries and unlawful border 
crossing) shortly after returning from Guantanamo, and both 
had been sentenced to 17 years of imprisonment.  Both are 
being held in high security penal colonies ) Vakhidov in 
Dushanbe, and Sharopov in Vahdat.  We were given access only 
to the administrative buildings of the penal colonies; we 
were not permitted to view the rest of the prison grounds, 
including the areas where the prisoners were being held. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Prison officials told us that each of the penal 
colonies houses more than 1000 inmates, all convicted of 
serious crimes.  Prisoners are housed in barracks which 
contain approximately 50 beds.  The areas around the beds are 
considered the prisoners' "individual spaces" where they are 
allowed to keep personal articles.  Prisoners are required to 
adhere to schedules prepared by the prison authorities; meals 
are served at 6am, 1pm, and 6pm, and there are 6 roll calls 
during the day (when prisoners must stand beside their beds). 
 Lights-out is from 10pm to 6am.  (Note: While the colonies 
where the GITMO returnees are kept have stringent security 
regimes, they are not the most restrictive in the prison 
system; maximum security prisons are reserved for 
Qsystem; maximum security prisons are reserved for 
particularly violent criminals, such as those with multiple 
murder convictions.  Prisoners in these maximum security 
prisons are kept in cells, not barracks, and cannot freely 
walk about the prison grounds.  End note.) 
 
¶6. (SBU) Each of the colonies has a library and a prayer 
room. 
Prisoners can use the library during their free time, and 
they are permitted to worship in accordance with their faith. 
 (There are some Orthodox prisoners, but most are Muslim.) 
Prisoners may speak to imams, and they are permitted to keep 
Korans in their "individual spaces."  The prison colonies 
have work programs, and prisoners can earn credits that they 
can use to purchase items at prison-run stores.  There are no 
general restrictions on prisoner to prisoner communication, 
and prisoners are permitted visitors pending approval by the 
authorities. 
E 
 
At Last We Meet 
 
¶7. (C) We met Vakhidov and Sharopov in the offices of the 
prison colonies' directors, and Col. Muborakqadamov and the 
prison colony director sat in during each meeting.  Guards 
brought each prisoner into the office, showed him to a chair 
in the middle of the room, and then left and closed the door 
behind them.  The prisoners wore simple black pants and 
shirts, and they were not handcuffed or restrained in any 
way.  There were no particular security precautions taken 
during the interviews, although guards remained posted 
outside the office.  Neither prisoner had any visible 
indication that he had been mistreated.  PolOff spoke in 
English, and PolAssistant translated into Tajiki. 
 
¶8. (C) Vakhidov's demeanor was sullen.  He spent most of the 
interview staring at the floor; he never looked directly at 
the prison officials or at EmbOffs.  He corroborated the 
general conditions that Muborakqadamov had described for us, 
but said that he was "not allowed to go to the mosque."  He 
said that his father had visited twice, and that he was 
allowed to speak to his father without the presence of prison 
officials.  He was allowed to accept packages from his father 
containing food.  He said that he had had some stomach 
problems, and that he received medicine from his father.  He 
had also visited the prison doctor. 
 
¶9. (C) Sharopov was more animated; he looked at EmbOffs when 
speaking to them.  His beard had been shaved, as prison rules 
prohibit facial hair.  He said that he had participated in a 
work detail ) he and a group of other prisoners were taken 
to a nearby factory to perform some repair work.  He has had 
one visitor ) a brother in law ) but has otherwise had no 
contact with family members.  Sharopov said that his lawyer 
had asked that his 5 years in Guantanamo count against his 
sentence in Tajikistan.  He said the court denied the motion, 
as there was no official confirmation from the U.S. 
Government about his detention.  He asked that EmbOffs pass 
on this information to the relevant officials. 
 
As An Added Bonus, Some Information on the Penal System 
 
¶10. (C) While traveling to and from the prisons, we took the 
opportunity to engage Muborakqadamov in a discussion of Tajik 
prisons.  Muborakqadamov described a system that has not 
changed markedly from the Soviet period; the main goal of 
prison guards is to "rehabilitate and correct" aberrant 
behavior.  He said that the system has lost specialists who 
had been trained at academies in Russia and Kazakhstan, and 
that the overall quality of prison officials was very low. 
Prison guards have a meager salary, have dangerous jobs, and 
are not trained well enough to run the system like it had 
been run under the Soviets.  Muborakqadamov himself has been 
in the prison service for 35 years, and he regrets the loss 
of professional exchanges that prison officials enjoyed 
before Tajikistan's independence.  He was very curious about 
prison systems in the United States, and he suggested an 
exchange program. 
 
¶11. (C) Comment:  Given the fact that we had limited access 
to the prison facilities, and that we conducted interviews in 
the presence of prison officials, we cannot draw any 
definitive conclusions about the prisoners' detentions. 
Neither prisoner exhibited signs of mistreatment, and their 
accounts of prison conditions generally corroborated the 
information given to us by Col. Muborakqadamov.  The 
prisoners had obviously gotten used to a strict regime 
Qprisoners had obviously gotten used to a strict regime 
imposed by prison officials.  (When they sat down in our 
meetings, they both voluntarily put their hands behind their 
chairs, although they were not restrained.)  EmbOffs got the 
impression that they were both holding back at least some 
information because of the presence of prison officials. 
Vakhidov was not particularly communicative, and he seemed 
resigned to the fact that he would be spending a long time in 
jail.  Sharopov was thinking of how to make his prison stay 
shorter, and what he could do when he got out.  PolOff 
detected in his mannerisms a sense of bitterness and 
hostility, although he alluded to the fact that conditions in 
Guantanamo were better than those in Tajikistan. 
 
¶12. (C) Comment continued: As has been our experience in 
other settings, Muborakqadamov's openness and cooperation was 
a stark contrast to higher level officials' obstructions. 
The director of the penal system, General Izatullo Sharipov, 
is regarded in the international community as being 
uncooperative and corrupt.  We suspect that Muborakqadamov 
has accurately characterized the overall professional 
 
capacity of prison officials as deteriorating.  End comment. 
JACOBSON