TURKMENISTAN: MEMBER OF OLD INTELLIGENTSIA SITS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ASHGABAT 000848

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SCA/CEN, DRL

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/03/2018
TAGS: PGOV PHUM TX
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: MEMBER OF OLD INTELLIGENTSIA SITS
IN A MARY JAIL

Classified By: CDA RICHARD E. HOAGLAND: 1.4 (b),(d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: The son of a man imprisoned in fall 2006 on
corruption charges has approached the Embassy for advice on
how to get his father freed. The son has told the Embassy
that the corruption charges against the father, who tried to
found a political party in Turkmenistan in 1991, were
falsified by a local Ministry of National Security (MNB)
officer. In 2007, the son claimed that government
authorities offered the family a deal to get the man freed
from jail, but did not free him after the family agreed to
the government's terms. At the son's request, the Embassy is
seeking to connect him with the OSCE Center, which maintains
a trained Turkmen lawyer on its staff to assist in such
cases. The case appears to be an example of corrupt and
abusive officials. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) On June 24 and 30, POLOFF met with Shanazar
Shaberdiyev, a young computer programmer from Bayramali (near
Mary City),to discuss his father, who is in prison. His
father, Nazarly Shaberdiyev, was a member of Turkmenistan's
intelligentsia in the earliest 1990s when glasnost came to
Turkmenistan but before the country's independence. In 1991,
Nazarly Shaberdiyev and a group of professionals and
academics founded the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, a
political movement based on essential democratic principles
and freedoms. However, as the group was beginning to
organize its activities, President Niyazov's supporters began
harassing and prosecuting founding members of the group.
Shaberdiyev's father was threatened with imprisonment if he
did not cease his political activities. Viewing the threats
as real, Nazarly Shaberdiyev ceased his participation in the
group and focused on establishing a private family computer
business in Mary. (NOTE: The gutted political movement was
likely hijacked a short time later by Niyazov supporters, who
then appropriated the name for the ruling Democratic Party of
Turkmenistan (the former Communist Party),which continues to
operate to this day. END NOTE.)

SHABERDIYEV BECOMES A COMPUTER REPAIRMAN


3. (C) Shaberdiyev's computer business thrived, and even
became the primary source of computer support and repair for
many government offices, including the regional MNB. The
family lived quietly until about July 2006, when an MNB
officer who regularly brought business to the shop insisted
that the Shaberdiyevs hire his daughter as an employee, even
offering to pay them for the position. However, the
Shaberdiyevs did not want to hire the girl, and rejected the
request. The MNB officer was perturbed, and began looking
into the elder Shaberdiyev's background, eventually
discovering that he had been involved in a political
opposition group. The younger Shaberdiyev said that at the
time his father was involved in the group, such activity was
legal.

MNB OFFICER ACCUSES SHABERDIYEV OF CORRUPTION


4. (C) The younger Shaberdiyev said that a short time later,
the MNB officer brought charges against his father, accusing
him of taking a bribe to hire the girl. During his father's
trial in August or September 2006, the MNB presented four
local witnesses, including the girl, who swore that the elder
Shaberdiyev had taken the bribe. Although the lawyer had
arranged for several witnesses to attest that something
entirely different had happened, not one witness showed up at
the trial. Shaberdiyev collected the signatures of 165
acquaintances and business colleagues of his father, vouching
for his father's integrity. He then sent a letter
petitioning for his father's freedom, along with the list of
signatures, to President Niyazov. He received no response.
The elder Shaberdiyev lost his case, and was sentenced to 14
years in the Mary prison.


ASHGABAT 00000848 002 OF 002


THE FAMILY ACCEPTS GOVERNMENT'S "DEAL"


5. (C) About a year after his father went to prison, the
younger Shaberdiyev said he was approached by MNB officials
who wanted to make a deal with him. They indicated that they
would release his father from prison with one year served, if
the family promised that it would never contact any foreign
diplomats or international organizations about the father's
case. The family struggled to decide whether to take the
offer or not, but relented in late fall 2007 out of concern
for the father's well-being. Shaberdiyev said he relayed the
family's agreement to the officials in January 2008.

...WITH NO RESULTS


6. (C) Since then, however, there has been no news or
communication regarding the father's release. Additionally,
after the family had agreed to the deal, prison officials in
Mary began demanding $300 payments to assure the father's
well-being and to possibly move him to a another facility.
Thus far, the younger Shaberdiyev has paid prison officials
twice in this way, but his father is still in the same Mary
prison. He said he has been able to visit his father at the
prison, and his father was generally in good health, but is
with dangerous prisoners. The family's greatest concern was
that one of them might harm the elder Shaberdiyev.

SHABERDIYEV SEEKS ADVICE


7. (C) Shanazar Shaberdiyev said he was asking for Post's
assistance in determining the family's best course of action.
He said the family's strongest desire is to clear his
father's name through a re-trial or appeal of the case, but
they do not believe they can successfully carry out an appeal
in Mary, due to local government involvement in the case. He
said the family wrote a letter in 2007 to the Procurator
General's office in Ashgabat, asking for the case to be
reviewed in the capital, but the Procurator General sent the
request for case review back to the Mary court.


8. (C) COMMENT: The Embassy has no way of confirming the
details of Shaberdiyev's tale. Corruption is endemic here,
particularly among security officials and at the local level,
and on the surface this case seems to be about corrupt and
abusive law-enforcement and judicial officials. The fact
that the elder Shaberdiyev dabbled in politics 18 years ago
seems almost immaterial, except as a pretext for abuse
because of a personal grudge. Embassy will introduce
Shaberdiyev to the OSCE Center's Human Dimension officer when
he returns from vacation on July 14 in hopes that the OSCE
Center's full-time attorney can assist Shaberdiyev in filing
an appeal. In the meantime, Shaberdiyev has made clear his
concern that any international media reporting on his
father's case would not just hurt his father, but also the
family, which has been warned not to meet with the
international community. END COMMENT.
HOAGLAND