In Turkmenistan, several high-ranking officials of the Prosecutor’s Office and the Interior Ministry were arrested and accused of bribery, corruption, and other serious crimes.
On May 12 three national TV channels showed footage from the courtroom and broadcast the corrupt officials’ public repentance, as well as luxury homes and apartments, expensive cars, jewels and gold, and neatly stacked reams of banknotes of various currencies, among which Turkmen manats and U.S. dollars. According to the broadcast, these assets were seized during the investigation and were now being repossessed by the state.
In the past 10 years, Turkmen television has repeatedly put on shows to demonstrate that Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov is in full control. Government officials convicted of corruption are always shown standing in handcuffs, with their heads down, monotonously reading out a repentance speech that was prepared in advance: “I lived well, I had everything, but I couldn’t resist the evil temptation and committed this crime.”
Still, these “TV-repentances” now occur less frequently than in the Saparmurat Niyazov era. In those days, Turkmens could regularly watch vice prime ministers, ministers, regional governors, general prosecutor Gurbanbibi Atajanova, officials of the Ministry of National Security or the Interior Ministry surrender their stolen wealth on TV.
The latest case made the headlines both in Turkmenistan and abroad. The TV broadcast did not report the length of the sentences imposed on the bribe takers or their rank.
Former General Prosecutor Gurbanbibi Atajanova begging Niyazov not to punish her
In one of his latest speeches, at the cabinet session of May 12, Berdimuhamedov instructed the Chairman of the Mejlis to amend the penal code so that convicted state officials could not be released before serving their full sentence, even by pardon or amnesty.
Undoubtedly, it will be as the President says. This means that the corrupt officials from the prosecutor’s office and the Interior Ministry will be serving their full sentence. But how will they serve the sentence? This question is not trivial as shown below.
An ATN source within the punishment implementation department at the Interior Ministry recently reported that Gurbanbibi Atajanova, the former prosecutor general involved in the dreadful retaliation against the accused of an “assassination attempt” against Niyazov in the early 2000s, was spotted fishing by a drain channel.
During her long tenure, Atajanova was known as “hat”, because she used to wear a “tabletka”, a type of military patrol cap. Now she is serving her sentence in a special unit of the DZ-K/8 women’s prison.
New female camp in Yylanly district; Daudan river on top
Until 2013, the camp was located in Dashoguz and was severely overcrowded. Three years ago, the authorities moved the camp into the former Yylanly district (now the district bears the name of Niyazov’s mother – Gurbansoltan-eje). The conditions in the new prison are much better, former inmates told ATN.
A source at the Yylanly region recently said that the resettlement brought improvements not only for ordinary prisoners, but also for so-called VIP inmates, among whom Gurbanbibi Atajanova.
In the new prison, the former prosecutor enjoys every comfort, except freedom. Unlike other prisoners, she is not fed prison gruel; she always and timely receives warm clothes and fresh produce. A high-ranking officer from the Dashoguz police department regularly visits her, asks about her health, listens to her requests and, when possible, fulfils them. Apparently, one of these requests was to be allowed to go fishing on the shore of the Daudan drain collector, near the prison. The “Hat” fishes under the supervision of two guards.
“It took me some time to recognize her, but I knew her face because the prosecutor general was often on TV during the Niyazov times,” said an eyewitness. “Then, when I saw her fishing and people from the prison escorting her, I said to myself: Wow, that’s what money can do! Surely they don’t take her out fishing for her beautiful eyes.”
Female camp
Sources suggest that Atajanova manages to enjoy such a pastime only by bribing officials of the DZ-K/8 camp, the police department and the supervisor of the Dashoguz province. The former prison, located within the city limits, could not offer such amenities and it was simply impossible to go fishing from there. Now, in a remote location, near the farmers association “Hakykat” in the Yylanly district, the prison personnel finds it easy to satisfy the whim of the former prosecutor general, provided that she pays of course.
Turkmenistan has declared a firm and ruthless war on corruption. But this evil will be invincible, as long as the whole state structure remains corrupt from head to toe. It will continue to happen: the convicted officials at the prosecutor’s office and the Interior Ministry will now be in the hands of the punishment implementation department, which is itself riddled with corruption. Unsurprisingly, at a meeting of the Security Council on May 4, Berdimuhamedov severely reprimanded Interior Minister Isgender Mulikov for his unsatisfactory performance and the poor discipline demonstrated by the officials at his department. In the department itself, however, nothing has changed, except that the convicted prosecutors will switch roles, from receiving to giving bribes to the prison guards, police officials and prosecutors.
Who knows, maybe one of the new inmates, like Gurbanbibi Atajanova with a fishing rod in her hand, will serve his sentence somewhere in the Turkmenbashi Bay or, better yet, in the Avaza resort area (the special prison BL-K/4 for former employees of the security forces is located just a few kilometers from the sea), swimming through the waves of the Caspian Sea. This is not too far-fetched: after all everything has its price…
Azat Khatamov
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