TURKMENISTAN: LACK OF RULE OF LAW IN A HOUSING CASE

C O N F I D E N T I A L ASHGABAT 001655 SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/CEN E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/23/2019 TAGS: PHUM PGOV TX SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: LACK OF RULE OF LAW IN A HOUSING CASE Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Sylvia Reed Curran. Reasons 1.4 (B) a nd (D). ¶1. (C) Muhammet Kelemenov, a Turkmen citizen and former doctor, came into the Embassy on December 23 to ask for help with an ongoing case to repossess his house. He said that he had purchased his house in the Kopetdag district of Ashgabat in 1997, and had been living there without any problems until February 2009. In February, local authorities accused him of having purchased his house illegally, and started a court case to get him to vacate the premises. He said that since February he has been fighting the case in the courts, submitting copies of his purchase and registration documents to try to prove that there was nothing illegal in the purchase of the house. He added that the case has gone all the way to the top, and on December 22 he filed a complaint with the Supreme Court. ¶2. (C) Kelemenov told Poloff that his lawyer said that at this stage the law no longer has anything to do with the case. He apparently told Kelemenov to look for someone in the provincial government who could influence the case. Kelemenov mentioned that during the course of the investigation, prosecutors brought up a previous case against him, in which he was removed from his job as a doctor. He said that he is now working for a Turkish company, and would not tell the local authorities where he was working, so that they could not harass his office into firing him. He also noted that neither he nor his wife recognized the witness that the government brought to testify about how they bought their house, which Kelemenov thought was strange since he would have known anyone who was part of the process. ¶3. (C) COMMENT: Kelemenov has come to the Embassy before, in one instance seeking assistance allegedly because his attempt to register a democracy and human rights organization had failed. (It is likely that if he had really tried to register a democracy and human rights organization, he would be in jail.) He has also approached OSCE for assistance, including a plea to reinstate his job as a doctor, which he lost because of accusations that he declared a mentally healthy man incompetent. The variety of his requests, and the fact that he is addressin the Embassy for help with what are clearly local matters, leaves some doubt as to the seriousness of his problems. However, the situations he has described, including having his house repossessed and being removed from his job for nontransparent reasons, are credible in a country where connections and personal influence trump rule of law. END COMMENT. CURRAN