Turkmenistan’s Former Interior Minister, Presidential Security Chief Convicted of Abuse of Office

A former minister of internal affairs of Turkmenistan, Isgender Mulikov, has been convicted of several crimes, including abuse of office and receipt of especially large bribes, Prosecutor General Batyr Atdaev announced at a meeting of the security council. Turkmen TV showed the former minister in handcuffs, his head shaven.

Isgender Mulikov

Meylis Nobatov

“After the discovery of my crimes I was indicted on legitimate grounds,” Mulikov said without looking up. “I fully acknowledge my offenses and repent.”

The prosecutor general also reported that the former head of the migration service, Meylis Nobatov, had committed similar crimes. The TV presenter omitted to mention that Nobatov used to head the presidential security service. The convicted former security chief said himself that he had committed his crimes in 2015 to 2019, “while holding high office.” Since leaving his position as head of the migration service, he frequently appeared in TV shots of the president’s guards. For example, the picture below was taken in August 2019 during the Caspian Economic Forum in Turkmenistan.

Mergen Gurdov has been head of Turkmenistan’s migration service since November 2017.

Turkmen.news received information on several occasions that both Mulikov and Nobatov were under investigation or had already been convicted, but was unable to confirm the reports. Sources said that Mulikov had been sentenced to 20 or 25 years.

The former minister of internal affairs was stripped of his rank and dismissed on October 1 this year. Sources linked his dismissal with the case of the businessman Chary Kulov, who received a lengthy sentence not long before Mulikov’s dismissal. There were reports that Kulov and a group of former ministers and senior officials had planned to seize power.