The State Security Service (SSS) reported the arresting of the Namangan city mayor, Anvarjon Otakhodjaev in a case of receiving a large bribe.
According to the Service, the mayor, together with director of a shoe manufacturing firm, demanded $60 thousand from a businessman in return of assistance in obtaining a 35-hectare land plot for construction of a multi-story building.
The company director was detained while receiving the above amount of cash in an operation. Reportedly after the operation continued, the mayor was also caught redhandedly while he was receiving $60 thousand through a middleman - the chief of the mayor’s clerk office.
The SSS added that the mayor had been stripped of parliamentary immunity and had been taken into custody. A criminal case has been opened against him and the director under Accepting a bribe on an especially large scale charge and could be handed from 10 to 15 years of imprisonment.
The company director is now facing the Fraud on an especially large scale charge and the Complicity in giving a bribe on an especially large scale charge, with the investigation ongoing. The State Security Service emphasizes that within the framework of the case, a legal assessment will be given to other possible illegal actions of the mayor.
Anvarjon Otakhodjaev became the mayor of Namangan in December 2023. Prior to that, since 2019, he had worked as the mayor of the Chartak district of the Namangan province. In 1998-2019, he held various leadership positions in the Departments of Economics and Statistics of the province, the provincial department of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other government agencies.
