A district criminal court in Namangan has sentenced Anvarjon Otakhojaev, the former mayor of Namangan city, to 11 years in prison after convicting him on seven separate criminal counts spanning embezzlement, fraud, abuse of power and bribery, province court officials announced.
The ruling, handed down by the Uzbekistan district criminal court and reported by Fergana province courts, brings to a close a case that began with Otakhojaev's arrest by the State Security Service (DXX) in September 2025 — less than two years after he took office as head of one of the Fergana Valley's largest cities.
What the court found
Judges found Otakhojaev guilty under six articles of the criminal code, reflecting a pattern of alleged misconduct that prosecutors say spanned his time in office:
- Article 167 (Embezzlement or misappropriation through abuse of position)
- Article 168 (Fraud)
- Article 205 (Abuse of power or official authority)
- Article 206 (Exceeding the scope of official authority)
- Article 207 (Negligent performance of official duties)
- Article 209 (Official forgery)
- Article 210 (Bribe-taking)
Under Article 59 of the criminal code, the court imposed a combined sentence of 11 years' imprisonment, along with a three-year post-release ban on holding any position involving administrative or financial responsibility — effectively barring him from public office and management roles well beyond his prison term.
He was not tried alone. Four co-defendants were also convicted in connection with the case: three received prison terms ranging from seven to 10.5 years, two were sentenced to two years and six months of corrective labor, and one received three years of restricted freedom — a form of supervised release under Uzbek law.
The scheme at the center of the case
According to investigators, the case centers on a land deal gone wrong. Otakhojaev is accused of colluding with the head of a shoe-manufacturing company, promising to arrange the businessman's rights to build a multi-story residential complex on a 35-sotix plot — roughly 3,500 square meters, or about 0.87 acres — within city limits.
In exchange, prosecutors say, Otakhojaev and his associates demanded $60,000 from the businessman, a sum investigators characterize as a bribe tied directly to his authority over land allocation decisions as mayor.
A short-lived tenure
Otakhojaev's fall from office came swiftly relative to his time in the role. Appointed mayor of Namangan in December 2023, he was removed from the post and taken into custody by security services less than two years later, in September 2025.
Born in Namangan in 1972, Otakhojaev built a career largely within the province's administrative and technical institutions. He holds two degrees from the Namangan Engineering-Economic Institute, earned in 1994 and 2002, and completed further training at the Academy of Public Administration under the President of Uzbekistan in 2011 — credentials typical of the technocratic path many senior province officials follow before reaching mayoral posts in Uzbekistan.
The verdict is not final. Under Uzbek law, both the prosecution and the defense retain the right to appeal or contest the first-instance ruling before the Fergana province court, through the standard appellate or cassation process, within the legally prescribed deadline. Until that window closes — or an appeal is resolved — the sentence formally remains subject to review.
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