The saga of Uzbekistan's allegedly arrested Emergency Services Minister Tursinkhon Khudaibergenov has taken an interesting turn, with his assistant telling Radio Free Europe’s Uzbek language service, Radio Ozodlik, that no such thing has happened (via Central Asian news).
"I heard about this message on the [Uzmetronom] website. However, it doesn't represent the facts. The minister is in Angren on the instructions of the prime minister," Khudaibergenov’s assistant, Dilshod Inomov, is quoted as telling Ozodlik.
Inomov insists that Uzmetronom's information is not valid as it not an official site. This is a curious observation, since Uzbekistan’s government websites have never been too big on publicizing the jailing of acting officials.
Meanwhile, Uzmetronom is sticking to its story, insisting that although investigators have not secured an arrest warrant, Khudaibergenov has been made to sign a written undertaking to limit his movements.
"Experts believe that Khudaibergenov has avoided arrest with the influential support of backers in the presidential administration and the government, who have apparently persuaded the president that this is absolutely indispensable in his line of duty," the site says. If anything, this turns of events throws the outside observer into only more confusion about how much individual public figures in Uzbekistan are able to defy the system.
Could Khudaibergenov go down in Uzbekistan's history as the first person ever to be unarrested?
Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.