On July 8, the Tashkent’s Yashnabad District Criminal Court issued a decision to end the criminal case against Said-Abdulaziz Yusupov, his lawyer Arslon Shaimardonov said.
Former Acting Director of the Public Fund for Support and Development of Independent Print Media and News Agencies of Uzbekistan, journalist Said-Abdulaziz Yusupov, 38, was arrested on May 10 last year on suspicion of fraud on an especially large scale and was placed in the pre-trial detention center of the State Security Service.
Immediately after the arrest, a footage surfaced on social medias in which he talked about pressure. Later it became known that he was also accused of embezzlement, bribery and types of accomplices of the crime of the Criminal Code.
A closed trial began on September 9 in the Yashnabad district criminal court in Tashkent, which ended in October. Said-Abdulaziz Yusupov was sentenced to six years in prison.
As the lawyer Arslon Shaimardonov said, the journalist was supposed to be released after paying damages as part of a cassation appeal in court in November-December, but this did not happen “for some technical reasons”.
According to him, the investigation lasted from May 2019 - all this time Said-Abdulaziz Yusupov was in the pre-trial detention center of the State Security Service.
On Wednesday, the Yashnabad District Criminal Court changed the sentence, terminated the criminal case and released Said-Abdulaziz Yusupov in the courtroom.
