In Uzbekistan, the trial of Valijon Rakhmanov, a lieutenant colonel in the Military Counterintelligence Department of the State Security Service (SSS) is ongoing. The Mirziyaev administration has accused him of espionage in favor of the U.S. government.

During the preliminary investigation and throughout the trial, Rakhmanov categorically denied all charges. However, investigator Javokhir Karimov from the SSS subjected him to months of physical and psychological torture in an attempt to extract a confession.

The charges against Rakhmanov were fabricated based on the false testimony of Rashid Matyakupov, a former officer of the National Security Service (renamed the SSS in March 2018), who had been dismissed from service in 2016. Despite the lack of substantive evidence, investigator Karimov pushed the case to trial.

On January 9, 2025, despite the absence of a criminal offense, in a closed-door hearing, the Military Court of Uzbekistan sentenced Lieutenant Colonel Rakhmanov to 16 years in a general-regime penal colony under Article 157, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan (Treason).

To maintain round-the-clock surveillance of Rakhmanov’s family, the SSS Internal Security Department installed security cameras outside his home and organized additional external monitoring of his wife outside their home.

Why Was Lieutenant Colonel Rakhmanov Prosecuted?

According to former and current colleagues, Rakhmanov’s persecution was a direct result of his principled stance in fulfilling his professional duties.

As part of his role in the Military Counterintelligence Department, Rakhmanov was responsible for monitoring defense enterprises to ensure the proper use of budgetary funds, as well as supervising the procurement process for modern weapons and military equipment.

During his investigations, Rakhmanov grew suspicious of large-scale embezzlement within state agencies responsible for centralized military procurement. If true, these financial crimes could have severely compromised Uzbekistan’s national security and defense capabilities. What did he uncover?

On January 31, 2023, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev issued a decree titled: “On Measures to Improve State Administration in the Equipping of the Armed Forces and the Defense Industry of Uzbekistan.” The decree established a State Commission tasked with overseeing the procurement of military and dual-use equipment for Uzbekistan’s security forces.

To implement this policy, a state-run enterprise, UzTechTrade, was created under the State Committee for the Defense Industry. UzTechTrade was designated as the exclusive purchasing agent for foreign military and dual-use products under Uzbekistan’s state defense procurement program.

Today, UzTechTrade holds a monopoly over defense procurement in Uzbekistan, controlling an annual budget of approximately $5 billion.

At President Mirziyoyev’s recommendation, Khotamjon Yusupov, a former deputy chairman of the SSS, was appointed director of UzTechTrade.

During an undercover operation, Rakhmanov uncovered a corruption scheme involving: Khotamjon Yusupov, director of UzTechTrade; Colonel Alijon Ashurov, head of the SSS Internal Security Department, his deputy Gonchar; Timur Shorikhsiev and Furkat Goibnazarov, SSS officers.

These individuals orchestrated fraudulent military procurement deals with foreign companies, particularly “Aksum” and “Inkas” (discussed below).

Once payments were made for military equipment, Yusupov received substantial kickbacks from the suppliers through an extensive network of intermediaries. These fraudulent transactions harmed Uzbekistan’s national interests and diverted public funds into private hands.

The companies Aksum and Inkas are owned by Ulugbek Maksumov.

According to Uzbek media reports, Maksumov worked as an investigator’s assistant in the Fergana Regional Prosecutor’s Office until 2006, when he was convicted of fraud. Facing further criminal charges, he fled to the UAE, where he continued his scams, targeting wealthy migrants from the former Soviet Union.

In 2008, using the Canadian brand INKAS, Maksumov established Inkas Group DMCC in Dubai, later expanding into INKAS Group and Aksum.

Between 2019 and 2021, with the backing of his childhood friend Otabek Umarov (Deputy Chairman of Uzbekistan’s Presidential Security Service), Maksumov set up similarly named businesses in Uzbekistan (INKAS VEHICLES, VPK AKSUM, VPK AKSUM MARINE and INKAS TRAINING RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTER).

Beyond his business dealings, Maksumov has maintained close ties with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service and has actively participated in pro-Russian propaganda efforts under the patronage of the Russian Consulate in Dubai. Maksumov is a staunch supporter of the “Russian World” ideology and has openly backed Russia’s war against Ukraine.

To oversee his business operations in Tashkent, Maksumov hired Farrukh Shorikhsiev, the brother of SSS officer Timur Shorikhsiev.

After each procurement deal between Maksumov and Yusupov, Farrukh Shorikhsiev flew to the UAE, returning to Tashkent a few days later with large sums of cash.

This international money-laundering operation allowed corrupt officials to funnel stolen state funds through offshore accounts, with transactions occurring on a regular basis.

The total amount of stolen funds remains unknown, as these crimes require further investigation. However, despite Rakhmanov repeatedly reporting the corruption to his superior, Timur Ubaydullaev, no criminal case was ever opened.

In June and October 2023, Khotamjon Yusupov offered Rakhmanov $500,000 in cash per contract in exchange for his silence. After Rakhmanov refused, the corrupt officials fabricated a criminal case against him, using false testimony from Rashid Matyakupov.

Seeing her husband being unjustly prosecuted, Roksana Rakhmanova made repeated appeals to government authorities. Receiving only bureaucratic dismissals, she resorted to making public video statements on social media (available here and here).

Who Is Rashid Matyakupov?

Born in 1989 in the Beruni district of Karakalpakstan, Rashid Matyakupov was a former operative in the National Security Service’s Jizzakh branch. To boost his performance metrics, he falsified criminal cases against rural residents using forged documents.

Using the authority and influence of the powerful organization he was part of, Matyakupov secured leadership positions for incompetent individuals in the region in exchange for bribes.

At the end of 2016, during one such operation, law enforcement officers arrested Matyakupov, leading to his dismissal from the National Security Service.

People who had worked with Matyakupov at different times described him as a deceitful person, willing to betray even his own family for money.

Between 2020 and 2024, he served as the director of Sanat Baraka Fayz Aziz, a company owned by former police colonel Sanat Yuldashev, who was also dismissed for bribery.

In 2022, Matyakupov paid a bribe to enroll in the master’s program at MGIMO-Tashkent (Moscow State Institute of International Relations), where he studied until 2024. During this time, he frequently traveled within Russia and allegedly carried out unofficial requests for Russian Foreign Ministry officials.

Despite being a civilian, Matyakupov maintained connections with high-ranking Karakalpak security officers in the SSS, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Ministry of Defense, potentially passing confidential information to Russian authorities.

Matyakupov was involved in a corruption scheme selling ranks and positions within Uzbekistan’s security sector. He acted as a middleman between powerful corrupt officials and candidates seeking to fast-track their careers through bribery.

In early 2024, while inside his Chevrolet Tracker, Rashid Matyakupov was arrested by SSS officers as he received a $10,600 bribe from yet another candidate hoping to secure a position in the central office of the Ministry of Defense of Uzbekistan.

It is worth noting that Matyakupov had purchased a brand-new black Chevrolet Tracker for $20,000 at the end of 2023. However, by September 2024, the vehicle was already being used by Javokhir Karimov, an investigator from the State Security Service of Uzbekistan, who was handling the criminal cases against Rakhmanov and Matyakupov.

Furkat Goibnazarov, an officer from the Internal Security Department of the SSS of Uzbekistan, persuaded Matyakupov to provide knowingly false testimony against Lieutenant Colonel Rakhmanov in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution.

To avoid punishment, Matyakupov submitted a written statement claiming that he had personally witnessed Lieutenant Colonel Valijon Rakhmanov of the Military Counterintelligence Department cooperating closely with key officials from the US Embassy in Uzbekistan. He further alleged that Rakhmanov had passed classified military information to American intelligence officers.

During the preliminary investigation into Rakhmanov’s case, the SSS investigative department also charged Rashid Matyakupov with treason in favor of the United States.

During the trial, Rashid Matyakupov admitted to having contacts with U.S. intelligence representatives and to providing them with classified information. Taking into account his confession and expression of remorse, on January 9, 2025, the Military Court of the Republic of Uzbekistan, in a closed hearing, sentenced him to eight years in a general-regime penal colony under Part 1 of Article 157 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan (“Treason”).

The ruling of the Military Court also ordered the return of $10,600 to Matyakupov, which had been seized during a search and temporarily held by the Financial and Economic Department of the State Security Service of Uzbekistan. However, in reality, this money did not belong to Matyakupov—SSS operatives had confiscated it from his car as material evidence when he was caught receiving payment for yet another “job placement” scheme.

Additionally, the court mandated the return of $2,500, bank cards, and an iPhone 15 Pro Max belonging to Matyakupov, which had been seized during a search of his apartment.

At the same time, the judicial panel of the Military Court did not deem it necessary to return a voice recorder, smartphone, and other data storage devices confiscated from Lieutenant Colonel Rakhmanov’s relatives during the search.

Legalization of Information

In late November 2024, several so-called independent media outlets reported the dismissal of several high-ranking officials from the State Security Service of Uzbekistan for obstructing an objective investigation into an assassination attempt on Uzbek citizens Komil Allamjonov and Dmitry Li.

Regarding this case, we would like to clarify: no such assassination attempt ever took place, nor was one even planned. The alleged attack only existed on paper, fabricated to justify yet another criminal case that was politically convenient for the Mirziyoyev administration.

The real issue was that if an official investigation had been launched into the massive embezzlement of budgetary funds in Uzbekistan’s defense industry, uncovered by Lieutenant Colonel Rakhmanov, investigators would have quickly traced the crimes back to Otabek Umarov, the Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Security Service. As it turned out, Umarov had far-reaching ambitions of his own…

The prolonged investigation into Lieutenant Colonel Rakhmanov and the numerous written appeals from his wife, Roksana Rakhmanova, drew the attention of individuals within President Mirziyoyev’s inner circle in the Presidential Security Service. After conducting their own inquiry, they reported to Shavkat Mirziyoyev that Otabek Umarov, using his influence over the State Security Service of Uzbekistan, had orchestrated a financial pyramid scheme to embezzle targeted budgetary funds and was planning a coup.

To dismantle Umarov’s scheme, Mirziyoyev’s team decided to legalize the obtained information. In this context, the legalization of information (the process of giving legal status to intelligence gathered through covert means) meant opening a criminal case based on fabricated charges that were unrelated to the actual crime the suspect had committed. This practice is widely used in Uzbekistan, especially during periods of inter-clan conflicts and power struggles.

To isolate key figures from Otabek Umarov’s team, the president’s inner circle orchestrated a media campaign about the alleged assassination attempt on Komil Allamjonov and Dmitry Li. State-controlled media, loyal journalists, bloggers, and pseudo-human rights activists amplified the narrative to convince the public of its authenticity.

To weaken the connection between Otabek Umarov and Ramzan Kadyrov, through whom the president’s son-in-law sought Vladimir Putin’s favor, and to further escalate the case, pro-government media outlets promoted a version implicating the head of the Chechen Republic in the alleged assassination plot. At the same time, two Russian citizens were placed on Interpol’s wanted list.

Having generated the necessary media resonance and taking advantage of the absence of an independent judiciary and legal defense system in Uzbekistan, investigators from the SSS of Uzbekistan proceeded with arrests in the assassination case, targeting key figures from Umarov’s team, including officers from the SSS Internal Security Department.

In the ongoing inter-clan power struggle in Uzbekistan, Otabek Umarov and his team have suffered a defeat. However, given that the final word in the presidential family always belongs to Ziroat Khojamova, it is highly likely that the president’s younger son-in-law will soon be appointed to a leadership position in one of the country’s security agencies. But that is another story.

In conclusion, the absurdity of the criminal case against Lieutenant Colonel Rakhmanov lies in the fact that thieves, traitors, and criminals, devoid of any moral integrity, orchestrated a show trial against an officer who had served his country with honesty and dedication.

The case of Lieutenant Colonel Rakhmanov should serve as a warning to every honest and principled military officer that there is no place for them in Mirziyoyev’s so-called “New Uzbekistan.”

All the information in this text was provided to us by patriots of our homeland — people who care about the fate of their country and its people, and who, like us, aspire to build a Free Uzbekistan.