Former Tajik Interior Min shot himself during arrest - version.

18/6 Tass 107

DUSHANBE, June 18 (Itar-Tass) - Tajikistan's prosecutors said suicide
was the main version of the tragic death of the former Interior Minister
Lieutenant General Makhmadnazar Salikhov.

"Makhmadnazar Salikhov shot himself on Wednesday evening with a
Makarov pistol in his house during the attempt of his arrest, sanctioned
by the republic's prosecutor general," the Interior Ministry and the
Prosecutor General's Office said in a joint official statement.
The prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case over abuse of
office by the former Interior minister, concealment of crimes committed by
police in the past, and the death in February 2008 of the special task
force commander Oleg Zakharchenko.
During the probe, Makhmadnazar Salikhov repeatedly ignored the summons
to testify as a witness.
After the arrest warrant was handed in to him, "the former Interior
Minister went to his room and a shot was heard promptly," the official
law-enforcement sources report.
But a number of independent media outlets cite the interviews with the
son and the widow of the late General, who affirm that their father and
husband has not committed suicide, but was killed by the people who had
come into their house.
During the first years of the civil war in the republic, Salikhov
headed the Prosecutor General's Office, and then occupied senior posts at
the Interior and the Justice ministries. He also headed the Executive
Office of the Tajikistan's president for two years.
In 2006, he was appointed interior minister by the President Emomali
Rakhmon's decree.
Two years later, when he was 51 years old, he was relieved of his post
without official explanations or offer of another job.
Several months ago, Salikhov found himself in the focus of another
public scandal. His brother was arrested and put in a prisoner's dock on
charges of murdering a close relative. The murder was committed in 1999,
but the probe was suspended for unclear reasons and resumed only in the
beginning of 2009.
Salikhov will be buried on Thursday in this native town of Sarband
(formerly Kalininabad) in Southern Tajikistan.
-0-myz/kud