A teacher of English from Dushanbe has got a lengthy jail term for trying to recruit his students for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terror group.

The Dushanbe city court has sentenced Jahongir Qosimov to nineteen years in prison.  He will serve his term in a high-security penal colony. 

The deputy head of the Dushanbe city court, Asomiddin Bobokhonzoda, says Qosimov was accused of radicalizing teenagers attending the English course and trying to recruit them for the ISIS extremist group.

According to Bobokhonzoda, several students of Qosimov have also been jailed for extremism. 

Recall, four school leavers from Dushanbe who sought to join the ISIS terror group were detained at the Tajik-Afghan border in Khatlon province in July this year.  

“Four teenagers, aged 17 to 18, were detained while attempting to illegally crossing the Tajik-Afghan border.  As it turned out they had sought to join the ISIS terror group,” Muhabbat Abdullozoda, the chief of the Drug Control Agency (DCA)’s office in Kulob told reporters in Kulob on July 25.  

According to him, law enforcement officers learned that they want to join the ISIS group from their telephone conversations with representatives of the ISIS group in Afghanistan. 

Criminal proceedings against the detainees have been instituted under the provisions of Article 401’ (1) of Tajikistan’s Penal Code -- mercenary activities; an investigation is under way.  

As it turned out, the teenagers have been recruited by Jahongir Qosimov.