Two officers of the Interior Ministry have been detained on suspicion of acceptance of bribe, according to the press center of the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption.

Ms. Zebunisso Ismatshozoda, the head of the Analysis and Control Department at the Interior Ministry Directorate for Criminal Inquiry, and Ms. Qumrigul Halimzoda, an investigator with this Department, have reportedly been caught red-handed while taking 1,200 U.S. dollars from a citizen for outputting information about his conviction from the Interior Ministry database. 

The anticorruption agency says criminal proceedings have been instituted against Ismatshozoda and Halimzoda under the provisions of Article 247 (2) of Tajikistan’s Penal Code – fraud; an investigation is under way.  They could face up to five years in prison.