A court has sentenced a 38-year-old civil servant to three years and one month in prison for phoning the governor of Surkhandarya province and posing as a Presidential Administration employee to push a construction request for an Afghan entrepreneur.

The Chilanzar District Court for criminal cases found the man, identified only as I.J., guilty of extortion under Article 165, Part 1 of the Criminal Code and of resisting a representative of authority under Article 219, Part 2. He will serve his sentence in a colony-settlement.

I.J., a department head at the National Committee for Ecology and Climate Change, called governor Ulugbek Kosimov on the evening of June 2, 2026, and introduced himself as “Komil from the Administration,” the verdict said. He asked the governor to allow an apartment building on the site of the Diplomat restaurant in Termez.

I.J. knew a presidential aide, B. Mavlonov, had a secretary named Komil, the verdict said.

Kosimov told the caller he had already refused the entrepreneur. “The reason I won’t consent is that there are administrative buildings of law enforcement agencies next to this restaurant,” he said, according to the verdict. He added that he would help allocate a plot elsewhere in Termez.

I.J. did not plead guilty but admitted introducing himself as “Komil from the Administration.” He said an ethnic Afghan former neighbor had asked him to help obtain the governor’s consent. “I’m not acquainted with him,” he told the court of Kosimov, saying he had obtained the governor’s number on a business trip.

The case involved a single episode, the phone call.

Article 165, Part 1 covers extortion, meaning demands for property or property rights backed by threats of violence, property damage, disclosure of secrets or the spreading of disgraceful fabrications. Article 219, Part 2 covers coercing a representative of authority to refrain from official duties or to commit unlawful acts.