A former elite general in the war-ravaged Central Asian state of Tajikistan has been jailed for life for planning an armed revolt against President Emomali Rakhmonov, the general's lawyer said on Saturday.
Gaffor Mirzoyev, 50, a commander of government forces in the civil war that raged in this former Soviet republic in the 1990s, was found guilty of "organising an armed rebellion and a coup," Abdukayum Yusupov said.
"Mirzoyev did not plead guilwho headed up Rakhmonov's elite personal guard between 1995 and 2004, was also head of the country's anti-narcotics agency before his 2004 arrest.
Some observers have seen Mirzoyev's detention as part of a campaign by Rakhmonov to neutralise potential political opponents ahead of presidential elections in November.
Last year, the head of Tajikistan's Democratic party, Makhmadruzi Iskandarov, a former head of the country's state gas company, was accused of massive fraud and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
In Friday's verdict, 15 other military officers were handed sentences of between five and 16 years in prison for taking part in the alleged coup plot in January 2004, Yusupov said.
Mirzoyev was also found guilty of "murder, failure to obey orders, organising explosions in the country's capital, illegal possession of a gun, abuse of power and corruption," Yusupov continued.
Mirzoyev, a former fitness instructor and lorry driver who was quickly promoted through the ranks after the start of the civil war in 1992, was accused of a total of 36 charges from the country's criminal code. Military officials told AFP that Mirzoyev had refused to resign when dismissed by Rakhmonov and tried to organise a coup against the president. "General Gaffor Mirzoyev... was preparing to launch a military coup," Rakhmonov said after Mirzoyev's arrest by Tajik special forces in 2004.
"This is a certified fact. Mirzoyev wanted to disturb the order and security of society." The president accused the general of being behind eight bomb attacks in the Tajik capital Dushanbe and of hiding thousands of weapons to be used in the revolt in secret caches across the country.